second day in kyoto. woke up freezing and thirsty from the chilly wind sneaking in through the small gaps in the room and the stove thats been running all afternoon. we literally crashed as soon as we arrived at the guesthouse "Small World Guest House" in 西陣 at noon on the second day.

a guy with dreads showed us the rooms and we took one that was 5000 yen for two (which was still a bit pricey for my standards). the guesthouse was made of cheap wood with doors that wont completely shut and a neat stone garden in the middle of the structure, which actually meant that we were indoors but not too different from sleeping in the open in mid-winter. now 5000 yen was way over my standard.

since it was too cold to stick around at the guesthouse, we took a bus to the center of kyoto again and looked through some shops and again started to look for somewhere to eat and drink. decide to call up Yasuyo and met up with her by the bridge to 祇園. she took us to a nice restaurant on Kiyamachi Street where we at last got to have some Kyoto style dishes.

after drinking some glasses of shochu and a bottle of wine, went on a search for another place to chill out. 3 of Yasuyo's favorite bars turned out they were closed for a party so we ended up at a japanese style izakaya with hundreds of sake and shochu.

naturally we lost track of the time and lost count of how much shochu and sake we ordered. grandpa decided to close for the day but let us stay and keep drinking. real happy charming guy.

it was already morning (again) when we paid the check, said fairwell to Yasuyo promising to meet again someday, and headed for the guesthouse for the few hours of sleep before checking out.

Tomo left early for tokyo, i stayed behind to take a few walks before coming back home at night.

three days and two nights of taking refuge from the past and the future. fragments and moments of the present can be the tickets out of reality. ...i know, most of the time its the other way around.

i have no idea when i last posted an entry in my second tongue, but here goes.

i havent a clue how many visitors i have here either, but to those who have been checking in, i'm sorry i've been silent for the past few weeks. the past weeks' been, well restless would be a word close enough to describe them. i dont plan to bore you with every detail so i guess i'll just share the fun stuff:

2 weeks ago i just HAD to get away from wherever i was, and decide on taking a trip to kyoto with my friend Tomo. it didnt particularly have to be kyoto (we were actually thinking okinawa but couldnt book a flight), when all we planned to do was get wasted on alcohol overdose and hadnt cared at all about sightseeing.

first day at kyoto: arrived at around 4pm, got out on the wrong side of kyoto station, walked for half an hour towards 三十三間堂 only finding it closed for the day, walked another twenty minutes towards kamogawa river, strolled by the river up north towards 祇園. walked around 先斗町 peeking into restaurants too packed to enter and finding ourselves too famished to care for what to eat (still was kinda hoping to run into a nice kyotoish cuisine, but) ending up toasting in one that serves food that probably wont bring back memories of where we were; some chinese noodle izakaya.

wandered around for a while unable to find the club we were looking for so we chose a small bar to get warmed up for the night ahead (again). our plan was to get drunk in the first place so as long as we had alcohol near at hand i guess we were on track. hehehe. "collage" was the small club we sought for which was in some alley along with strange bars and cafes.

luckily the event of the night was KYOTO JAZZ MEETING featuring Shacho (Soil & "Pimp" Sessions) and Yoshihiro Okino (Kyoto Jazz Massive).

met a local named Yasuyo, who was a huge fan of Shacho, snook out together (leaving half dead Tomo behind) for a quieter hangout to chill out. called Tomo and found out he was actually sleeping by the river, without a clue to how he got there. damn lucky we could find him.

so the three of us (Tomo and me particularly drunk) took a stroll through 祇園 towards 八坂神社 at around 5 in the morning (i think) to pray for whatever we had in mind at the moment (Yasuyo threw here coins and actually missed!) and said our goodbyes.

we hadnt actually reserved a place to stay the night so we grabbed a cab and asked the driver to take us to a sauna thats open til 10 am for 1000yen. we slept on the floor. LOL.

bet youre thinking, "you could of done all of that in shibuya", right?
yup, i totally agree.

a bit more episodes and photos to come...
check out over there for more photos too.