day 143, Kyoto

Got up and caught the train to Kyoto after going to the wrong station, and found our way to the hostel pretty easily. We headed straight out looking for food and stumbled upon a Japanese fast food place where had which was excellent, cheap and filling. We walked up through streets which were a bit touristy though very Japanese selling all these cool things, with Jason having to buy gifts for his adopted family we stopped off and sampled lots of different nibbles. We arrived at a temple and had a look around. The temple itself was very good, though I thought it was spoiled by all the shops and wares in and around it, where people seemed more interested in having a look at the tat then the temple and the surrounding scenery. We nipped back to the hostel to get an umbrella before making our way to Kamura, for the Kurama-no-hi Matsuri, the fire festival. The train was heaving and when we arrived there were lots of men in white waterproof suits with megaphones directing us, and we queued up along this road with thousands of people when it started to absolutely piss it down, so many umbrellas went up at the same time it was unbelievable. It really didn’t stop raining for the whole night, and the rain got harder and harder, and no one (who didn’t speak Japanese) was aware of what was going on. We were tempted to call it a day and fuck off though we found a bit of shelter under a jutting roof, and where people were crowding along this road they formed a queue and started walking up through the village while men, women and children walked the other way with varying sizes of torches all lit up, with fires either side of the road. The marches were all in traditional Japanese festival dress and were chanting things and having a great time in the soaking cold rain, the men in the sumo thong-wrap around things and just some fabric across their shoulders were straining under the weight of the 5m torches (unfortunately with no real flame due to the rain) which they were carrying, all the while chanting something. It took about an hour to walk through the village, then we got directed with the rest of the crowd back to the train station which in itself is tiny, so that took about an hour and half in the pissing rain and crowded amongst thousands of people. We got the train back and where we hadn’t eaten and was about 9 we spotted a curry house and stopped off for a curry which was amazing, just what I wanted, then back to the hostel to shower and finally dry off, chill a bit and off to bed. Said goodbye to Jason as he leaves tomorrow morning and made a couple of plans for tomrrow, they have a festival where it celebrates Kyoto’s history by literally walking 1000years of traditions past you in a parade so will check that out, then hopefully watch the rugby world cup final!