After the events of Friday night, I wanted to get out of JCMU for at least a day trip. Luckily the night before I had chatted with Scott and Michael, who had planned on meeting Brian in Omihachiman (the closest stop to his homestay), for a day in Kyoto. I told them all I’d tag along and maybe act as their tour guide a bit. So around 11:30am on Saturday morning, we set off for the station, to catch the noon rapid train to Kyoto. When we got to Omi, we found Brian standing on the platform and yelled at him to get him to come to our car, which he did, so we didn’t have to get out of the rapid train and wait around in the station for 20 minutes for the local. For all three of them it was their first ‘big’ excursion out from JCMU and it was neat to see all of their reactions on things like the train ride, where as my attitude to it now is that I just want to get a seat so I can half-doze my way to wherever it is that I’m traveling to. That’s not to say I find train travel boring, I love it, its just now its not so much of a novelty anymore. When we got to Kyoto station exactly 46 minutes later, I pointed out the waffle store directly next to the exit for the Biwako line, and then we walked out to the main area of the station, the area under the large open-air canopy. We spent a little bit exploring around while they took some pictures. The next stop on our trip was the revolving sushi bar in Kyoto station (in the Asty Road section of it that is an underground walkway away from the main station area). I’ve been to this place probably a half dozen times now since first going to it when I was in Kyoto 2 years ago with my mom. Its really cheap and easy and they have these cool hot water dispensers right in front of you for tea. None of the guys had been to a revolving sushi bar yet so I thought it would be the best place to go for lunch. Lunch was tasty again, and leaving the restaurant we went underground again, and found our way to Porta, where I first headed to the foreign foods store, with the intent of buying Swiss Miss hot cocoa (yum!) and in the process I found REFRIED BEANS!!!!!!!!! Yeah, you might call me crazy, but I’ve gone without refried beans for 5 months and had searched for them previously with no luck and so had assumed they didn’t exist in Japan, however I was proven wrong. Go, I bought myself a can along with my box of hot cocoa, and finally used a prepaid credit card that I got for Christmas. Stop #2 in Porta was, of course, Mother Garden. The Sirotan tissue box was on my “must buy” list, and luckily they had it in stock. I wasn’t able to convince any of the guys to buy anything Sirotan though….but I’ll work on that. I was also able to use my prepaid credit card on this, so you can’t tell me to stop buying silly stuff.
Leaving the station, we made a quick stop at the post office and then starting wandering around a bit. We stopped into a pachinko parlor for a second, just to demonstrate why I’ve never been able to say inside of one for more than 2 minutes: the noise level is enough to make your ears bleed. Leaving, we couldn’t figure out what to do for the rest of the day, so I suggested Shijo and Sanjo, two streets which between them encompass the entertainment district of Kyoto. We then spent the next several hours wandered the covered streets, going through the different market districts (Nishiki) and shopping districts (Tawaramachi). I had hoped to find an arcade that I had been to once before while we were wandering around, and was also on the lookout for a place called the Wonder Tower, which I knew was on Kawaramachi-dori but that was all. Along the way we found a couple different arcades, which we stopped in from time to time for some games of Guitar Freaks and Taiko Drum Master.

After a couple hours of walking, we happened upon a building called Round 1 Amusement, and saw a big sign for bowling. We all kinda looked at each other and said “lets go bowling!!”, and so…we did. It was a 7-story building, with the bowling alleys on floors 5-7, and the reception desk on the 4th floor. Floor 1-3 had a mix of UFO catchers, video games, and slot machines. We went to the 4th floor and thought at first that maybe they wouldn’t have bowling shoes in sizes that would fit us. Shoes were dispensed to people on this wall of what looked like lockers, one each with the size of the shoe written on it, a button to dispense the shoes, and a little opening at the bottom where the shoes would come out. Luckily when we talked to someone at the front desk (who actually asked us, in Japanese, if English was ok…heh), they had shoes to fit us. They gave us a little slip with a number on it and told us to come back in an hour. So, we left the building and went in search of a place to get a quick dinner. The first place we found turned out to be a KFC, where I had a strange meal of a chicken breast and ‘gratin’, which was basically a baked pasta dish.

After eating we returned to the Round 1 building to see if a lane was open for us yet. They were all ready for us so I got shoes for everyone and they gave us our lane assignment with a free token for the jukebox. It was a pretty high-tech bowling alley, with projection screens above each lane, and a camera that would show you exactly how the pins were being hit, in real time, on the television screen near your lane’s seats. At one point they even turned off all the lights to try and do a strike contest (which, we didn’t know at the time). Brian tried to win it for our team but ended up with….a gutter ball. Oh well. (Apparently they were giving out clocks or something to the people that got strikes.) My first game ended up over 100, and my second game was under 100. But I had a lot of fun even if I suck at bowling. When our games were finished, we had to go back to the 4th floor to pay. When we paid, we got some cards that would let us get 20 free ‘tokens’ for the slot machines and a 1 free try at a UFO catcher. Well, I didn’t win anything in the UFO catcher (also known as the ‘claw’ game in the US), but my 20 coins in the slot machines lasted for a good half an hour before I ran out. Gambling is actually illegal in Japan, so you don’t actually win ‘money’ at slot machines or pachinko, you win prizes. However those prizes can then be converted to money at some little window down the nearest back alley. These little doorways exist at every single location with slot machines. It cracks me up how blatantly people are working around the law and yet no one cares at all.

Leaving the Round 1 building, we walked a block or so down to the Wonder Tower (which, really isn’t a tower, its just a normal looking 6-story building). We decided to start at the top and work our way down. On the top floor, we found this whole section with very spiffy looking computer stations, with a bunch of people playing some kind of game on them. On closer inspection, they turned out to be playing Counter Strike! It was a mini Counter Strike LAN inside of a Japanese arcade! How cool is that? What was even better was, it was 100yen (~$.90) for 30 minutes of playing time! (If you wanted to play longer, you had to buy this card which would keep track of your stats and allow you to come back to play more CS or other games that might be featured at another time. The computer stations all had these very cool card readers on the desk parts of them…) So after a moment’s deliberation, we decided to sit down and play. Someone working there came over to help us get set up, and lucky he spoke very good English, so that even those of us who suck at CS (um…me) could figure out what to do. The next 30 minutes flew by pretty quick, and by the end of it I was finally getting the hang of everything. After it was over were wandered the Wonder Tower a little more, and ended up one floor with some games and Brian and I played from Time Crisis while Michael reprised his role on Taiko Drum Master. No matter what I do on that game, it always ends up giving me blisters. That and I can’t do drum rolls.
When we were all arcaded-out, around 9:30pm, we decided to head back to Kyoto station by bus (since it was closer to where we were and I *thought* it would be cheaper). On the way back we dropped off Brian at his stop in Omihachiman, and the three of us continued back to Hikone, wondering when we got back how hard it would be to get our bikes out of a locked parking area. (I only parked there because someone told me last semester that even when the lot is closed, there is still an open doorway that allows people to walk in and out and is large enough to get a bike out. Well, when we got back to Hikone that turned out to NOT be the case. We had to squeeze ourselves into the lot through a crack in the fence, and then toss our bikes over the same fence to get them out. All the while I was wondering what we would say incase the cops came up and asked us what the heck we were doing, since it looked like we were stealing the bikes. (Though I thought, if they cops did come, they wouldn’t give us much trouble since how many would-be thieves would be wearing their dorky bike helmets while stealing someone else’s bikes.) We ended up getting back to JCMU around 10:30pm where I finally had a chance to clean up my room and do laundry for the first time since my roommate went crazy.

The interesting ways to get bowling shoes in Japan (notice the kid with the Michigan hat!), and Scott looking like Elvis:

Counter Strike!