Jehovah, Nudist, Fires, Geisha, Sake

Before I even boarded the ferry to Japan, a man came up and started conversing with me about global warming. Never one to shy away from the topic I gave my veiw and excused myself to catch the ship. When I got to the boarding area I noticed that he had tricked me into taking a Jehovah Witness magazine. He hid it under the global warming magazine he had talked to me about. I guess he thought that by the time I got to Japan I would be converted.
The ferry I chose for my voyage was a hydrofoil. I found out that a couple of weeks ago one of the ferries hit a whale. My ride was not that eventful but entertaining nonetheless. I guess they like to put all the foreigners together because I was seated in a section with all Americans, away from the Korean and Japanese folks. I met a guy named Gabe who was intriguing. He had grand plans of doing a cross continental trip in a van with a bunch of other musicians. I have been scheming a cross continental trip of my own so we had lots to talk about. He also kept mentioning his endearment for nudity and being naked. It probably came up at least four times in the hour conversation. Hey, I do not judge nudist enthusiast but I thought it was a weird thing to mention during a first time conversation. We exchanged contact info and as the boat docked we went on our separate ways.
I met up with another English teacher, Joe, that I knew from a brief encounter (in Seoul) at a social outing a couple weeks before. He contacted me at the last minute before I left and I told him he was welcome to join me traveling along the way. So we headed to Kyoto that night on the shinkansen (bullet train). We had never really hung out before but he proceeded to tell me all about his numerous sexual partners. Again, I am not going to judge but it was a strange "getting to know you'' conversation.
Once in Kyoto, we were welcomed by the huge Kyoto Tower. After a short walk, I got to my hostel and we found a hostel for him nearby. I was exhausted after a full day of traveling,transferring,traveling,and transfering. After eating at a fast noodle restaurant I headed home and hit the sack.
The next day we did a walking tour. Along the way we saw gorgeous sights, including Kiyomizu-dera,Sannen-zaka, Ninen-zaka and Maruyama-koen. The end took us to the area of Gion, famous for geisha sightings and scenery from ''Memoirs of a Geisha''. We left to rest for a bit and came back to Gion for a special ceremony happening that night.
The ceremony was called Okuribi and it was part of Obon,which is when ancestors souls comeback to this world for a few days. Okuribi are fires meant to guide the souls of the ancestors back to the world from which they came. We had a hard time seeing the fires because of all the people but I was in awe of all the kimono clad women walking the romantic streets. Joe became obsessed with seeing a geisha. His obsession came to an end with the agreement that he should be a geisha for Halloween.
Sunday was a little too touristy for my liking. But there was so much to see I guess it had to be. First, we went to Nara. It hosts the biggest indoor Buddha and hundreds of deer.I wasn't quite as fascinated by the deer, being from Ohio, but it was funny to see them go crazy on kids and Joe. One of them started eating his geisha fan when he refused it a cracker. After Nara, we went to Fushimi-Inari so Joe could ''run through the gates like a geisha''. There was a wonderful path of torii through the woods and fox statues at the gates. The fox is considered a messenger of one of the gods and supposedly has the ability to possess humans. After Inari, we headed to Osaka for the evening. We checked out the Osaka-Jo, a castle, and had sushi and sake. As we headed back to Kyoto by shinkansen I vowed that I would have a laid back Monday with more things off-the-beaten path.