“Kindy” does Kyoto--Part I

While there are many perks associated with my job here, one of the best ones is not having to give up the school break schedule I have become accustomed to since starting kindergarten those many years ago. The breaks in Japan are slightly different from the ones in the U.S.—the most noticeable disparity being the length of summer vacation (6 weeks vs. 3 months). Spring break in Japan is two weeks long, and is all the time the students and teachers have in between grades. But two weeks without classes is two weeks without classes, and since I am sort of an auxiliary member of the teaching staff with no clubs to supervise, I am free to take time off.

Spring Break 2008 started off with a brief visit from my friend Monica, a fellow Arizonan who I met at orientation so many months ago. She stayed in my apartment with me for a few days and did her own traveling while I finished up teaching at school. We checked out a few of the sights of Kurume, Narita-san, the Chikugo River and the Ishibashi Art Museum before I sent her on her way. Originally, Kim, my roommate from college, was scheduled to arrive about 40 minutes after Monica’s flight left, so I was going to go hang out at the airport, but instead, Kim’s flight was delayed a whole half a day, and she had to spend the night in Tokyo. So I ended up meeting her on Monday afternoon.


Wendy, Narita and Monica

After the initial set back, the rest of the Kindy adventures were carried out without too many problems. The ones we did encounter (the Shinkansen tickets not working in the station gates, bad directions to our hostel) were pretty easily overcome. Half of Kim’s trip was spent in Kyoto, where we packed more into 2.5 days than I ever thought possible. By the time we boarded the train to return to Kurume, we were both exhausted and I had a couple blisters from our miles of walking.

Day 1


Getting ready to leave Kurume

We left Kurume around 10 AM and arrived in Kyoto a little before 2 PM. We grabbed lunch at Kyoto Station and left the main exit to look for our hostel. I had copied down the directions from the website, and it seemed easy enough to walk there: take big street to Shichijo-dori, turn right, walk past three stoplights and turn left. The hostel would be a large yellow building on the right side of the street. Apparently, since the website was last updated, an additional stoplight was installed. We turned left after the 3rd stoplight and found nothing but private homes. After a few trips around the block, we decided to go one more light, just to see and BAM! There on the right side of the street was a huge, new, yellow building. When we checked in, the clerk at the desk told us that we were some of the first guests in their new addition. Not too shabby. Not that we spent a lot of time there. Later when Karl came in, he also got lost in search of the hostel, so I didn’t feel so bad about the lousy directions.


You know you are in Kyoto when you see this.

Once we finally located the hostel and dropped our bags off, Kim and I caught a bus to Kitano Tenmangu Shrine to partake in the last few hours of the monthly flea market held there. The wares being offered seemed pretty typical; Kim bought the first of what was to be many pairs of no-show socks and I bought a hand towel, since I forgot to bring one and felt very unprepared without it. We did a quick tour of the shrine, and took some pictures of the last few ume blossoms before getting back on the bus and heading toward Shijo-dori and the main shopping area for some dinner and browsing. Most of the stores closed at 8, and then we decided to go back to the hostel for some showers and wait for Karl.


Kitano Tenmangu's impressive gate.


Enjoying some satsuma imo fries at the flea market.