Impressions

 Kon nichi wa!

In the last few days we visited Kyoto on foot, visiting temples and shrines.

 

We also walked through the Imperial Palace Garden. There are so many things that are different from what we know.

The bus is, like most cars here, very low and narrow. The driver first opens the front door for the passengers to pay and get out. Then he opens the back door for people to get in. The bus station has electronic information to let you know when your bus is coming.


The big streets have sidewalks, the little ones only have a markup. The crossings have sonar signals, initially very annoying, but then we got used to it and came to rely on it. We saw a couple of diagonal crossings.

Most of the times people won't cross the street on red, even when the street is empty. To get out of the parking building they have a light and sound signal and one or two people with little flags to stop the pedestrian traffic. The paid parking has a system of blocking the back wheel, like a raised plate.

In front of the different buildings you can see some plates in the side-walk. You can un-screw and raise them to delimit a space or block the traffic.

There are many bicycles. On the sidewalk there is a special line for them, but they are allowed to go on the pedestrian side too! On the bicycles you can see baskets, seats for children or infants(some have both, with rain covers and all)

Parking for bicycles is on two levels, like for the cars. They have a system of blocking the back wheel like a ring, that is controled with a key. When we rented the bicycles in Himeji I found out that they have an escalator just for them, so you don't have to push them up-hill.

There are people of all ages at all the times on streets. I've seen a crowd only at at the one-day, sell-everything market and at the temples. They wear west style clothes or kimonos. The young ones look like they climbed out of a manga page.

The houses have their typical aspect even when they are modernized. Every space and nook is used with efficiency, a little garden in 5 square inches. Every house has on the sidewalk one or two red buckets with water in case of fire. In between houses there are restaurants  and little stores.

The food: we tasted different things that were offered: pickled vegetables, sweets. We tried ramen, udon(very thick spagetti, different consistency) soba (like angel hair spaghetti that you dunk in the sauce) donuts with meat. From the travel guides I understood that there are some places where they have a line outside, the food is that good, but we didn't come across them, or maybe it was the wrong hour. We haven't tried sushi and sashimi yet.

The restrooms are either very simple or very beautiful. At one of the temples we saw a toillet with a seat with sounds and washing, but I liked best the sink with water, soap and dryer in the same bowl.

To be continued in a future post.