The times are changing

Hello from the skies again! I am on the plane en route to Osaka as I write this :-)

So my bestie C came over for dinner the other day and finally sorted her October schedule out and we are flying to Austria for 15 or so days in October. I wanted to ask our third travel buddy P but she’s pretty much changed from a “travel for travel” to a “travel for IG influencer-type posts now”, last time in Italy the fun got pretty much sucked out because of her. Besides, she went on a trip to France (or maybe it was just Paris) in March and didn’t even ask us, and she’s been complaining about her lack of Annual Leave days that we just decided to not ask her at all. I even sent her that promotion leaflet on the cheap flights and all she said was “oh your Dad can go back home now,” completely ignoring the cheap flights included to several other European cities.

Besides, she’s been to Austria with me in 2013 already, so she’s probably not as interested as she “needs to visit new places” (yet she’s been to France/Paris before already).

Our itinerary’s pretty nice so far, if I do say so myself. Will get into it another day.

C had a bit of a heart to heart chat with me and said she’s now sort of tired of solo-travel. She used to be a corporate staff but quit her job a couple years back and is now focusing on her business which is a Japanese language school that also has other hustles such as translation and interpretation jobs and such. She’s also helping her sister out with the patisserie. A true entrepreneur, I suppose!

She said that before, when she was a staff and had colleagues, traveling solo was like taking a break from all the gossip. But now, working for herself, she’s already solo every day, and traveling solo just makes it so… lonely’s too strong a word, I guess what she’s trying to say is, it gets monotonous.

Which I sort of get it. I enjoy traveling solo very much, I also enjoy traveling with friends. It’s just having to adapt to the different “rhythm” so to say. But when traveling solo there’s always some sort of inconvenience. Like in the airport just now, I was sitting on a seat near the boarding gate. Just before boarding, I went to the toilet (as my ticket was not able to online check in and I got a drasted window seat so I wanted to empty my bladder before boarding) and when I came out, my seat was gone. I couldn’t leave my bag out (unattended items would be taken away, as the intercom keeps repeating).

Photo taking as well. You’d have to rely on the kindness of strangers to take your photo, if you want a photo. And a funny thing I noticed just as C mentioned… Japanese people tend to take photos that are… not so nice LOL. I noticed too. On IG or TikTok I see shorts people making fun of “ask an Asian to take your photo” but really, Asian, but not Japanese. (Alright, I know i know, no stereotyping. But generally speaking, at least the times I’ve asked people to help take a photo, it’s true. The Japanese have terrible composition)

Oh, and when I got on the plane, I really have to wonder, do people not know how to read? Yes, I didn’t really want the window seat, but I do sit where I’m assigned. So when there was someone seated in my seat (it was a family of three), I simply raised my ticket high up so a crew staff can see me and she came over asking what’s wrong. I simply handed my ticket to her and she asked the guest what seat they’re on. They’re a family of three and just said “the ground staff said we’re seated together” and didn’t show the ticket *rolls eyes*. Well. Just follow as the ticket assigned. I wouldn’t have minded swapping seats but they just didn’t take the ticket out to see what seat they were. So they had to do the convoluted thing of coming all out (it was a 3-corridor-3 set up) and then me going in.

But I made no fuss. I’m now just quietly seated here by the window being roasted alive because the seat in front of me refuses to close the window shutter and the angle of the sun just shines on me.

Day 1 - Kyoto and I packed the wrong clothes

Straight out of the airport and I headed to Kyoto. It was nice timing too. A word of advise for people going to Japan: this time, in Osaka Kansai International Airport (KIX) if you do the Visit Japan online immigration form/customs form declaration, then you can breeze past customs (sorry, immigration was still shit). While queuing at the immigration, I got annoyed at the lady in front of me (mainland Chinese) as she was crossing lines and coming back. When someone else dropped their boarding pass and fell near her, she took the boarding pass and wanted to keep it. I said "it's that lady's" in Mandarin, and she was in awe. Then she asked me what passport I had and I said Austria. And she was more in awe that I spoke Mandarin. Then she wanted to take a photo of the covers of her China passport and my Austrian passport. Figured it wouldn't hurt so let her do it. Anyway, once we got through... there's a new line for customs. If you just fill in the paper forms, then you have to queue a long long line to pass customs. I did the Visit Japan thing (generated a QR code) and I just had to check in on a computer terminal then I breezed out.

Just in time with 2 minutes to spare to get on the Limousine Bus direct to Kyoto. Yay. Got to my hotel and although check in time is normally 17.00 (and it was 15.00 when I got there), they said my room was clean already and I can check in early. Yay.

The yays though, stop here. I wanted to see wisteria, and after some research found out this temple had, but by the time I was there, the wisterias were gone. Oops!

I also underestimated the weather and only packed a vest type jacket but it's cold here, more so at night. (And a friend had complained about how hot Tokyo was last week, so I thought it'd be hot here too). Can't help it, I had to get to Uniqlo or somewhere to get a jacket. At Uniqlo, I almost got a hoodie, but after I looked well at the tag, it was an AIRSIM hoodie. Uniqlo's airsim technology is........ cool to touch and fresh. I'd freeze in that LOL. So I got a parka... I know this as a windbreaker. Just looked up what a parka is, and it says it's fur lined? This one I got definitely not fur lined.

Went hunting for dinner and decided to go to a fancy-shmansy looking sushi belt. It's all.... automatic!

My plan was to walk to a particular restaurant to make a reservation for the next day breakfast (breakfast is by reservation only). I checked on the website before and it said nothing... Well... The restaurant's regular day off is Tuesday, but this week, they had Wednesday off too, so I couldn't book. Then I saw a sign at the door and it says reservation has to be done by phone with a Japan number (WTF?) So i had to call the following day.

Feeling quite defeated, I wanted a pick-me-up and what better than to the Pokémon Center!

Ah. I want those plushies. But don't worry. I didn't.

After this, I made my way back to the hotel. I saw a Donki along the way near the hotel, so I went back to the hotel first to drop off my stuff and went out again to Donki.

The hotel stated themselves, the room is very small, so go down to the common room for reading and socializing. The room isn't really so small. Can easily sleep 2 but luggage definitely not enough, luggage just good for 1 piece.

Day 2 - Kyoto and this time everything went smoothly

Hah! So I couldn't make that reservation for today, no problem, I went to look for another type of breakfast. Eggs'n Things is a very weird Hawaii-themed diner or cafe type of thing. But. The pancake wasn't even that good. I guess they wanted to make it savory. I think even if it's savory, a pancake should have a teeny tiny bit of sugar.

Caught a bus to go somewhere far-far away.

The NyanNyan-Ji! The Link Be Here! According to their website, this is just a website showing cat-themed exhibits. Everything inside is cats. It was hilarious. There's no real cats (maybe there are but they're hiding, I guess)

So just to show you some photos without my chatting.

I don't know why this series of "history book" just amused me so much. The pyramid... with cat ears LOL. I had to get the postcard. I got... a lot of postcards. Well. Fodder for my postcard IG. And the Omikuji. I got a super-luck omikuji, which this "level of luckiness" usually doesn't exist (at least, I don't think so). But I also suspect for this Cat Museum Omikuji, all the Omikuji would be some level of "Good Luck."

Next off to Arashiyama. I was hoping to find the same shop I went to some 10 years ago that sold a handbag, the design was sort of a Birkin-type bag with those flaps, but the material was with the Japanese kimono cloth. But nah, shop doesn't exist anymore.

So after walking along the street, snacking on street food, and having some miscommunication where I wanted to buy a cup-sized warabimochi, and the staff gave me a family sized one and I only have till Monday to eat it up, I decided to go back into the city. Book Off Plus. Second hand stuff. Long time no see 8cm CDs! I got 3 CDs (not these 8cm ones)

Then decided to get an early dinner.

Decided to go all out and went for the "Prestige" set and also ordered this "Jabara" Cucumber, which on the menu said, "You'll be surprised!"

Guess what, I was indeed super surprised. He just placed that cucumber on the bar table without a plate or any lining! I AM SHOOKEH. IS IT EVEN HYGIENIC?
But I ate it all up because it was good.

I've said once I wouldn't visit those cat cafes or puppy cafes, but from the photos at the storefront and checking some reviews online it seemed the piggies were well-looked after, I decided to give it a try. Small controlled groups, tables each session. You can't pick up the piglets. You can't touch their face. Okay. Piggies came to me. Piggies slept on my lap. One piggie was trying to eat my parka so I tried to pull it out and bloody piggie tried to snap-bite me, LOL. Okay, feisty! I didn't know pigs can get feisty!

Anyway, after this piggy visit, I don't think I can have roasted suckling pig anymore.