Friday felt so much like a Friday. It was a slow day at work, mostly spent waiting for my legions of killer agents to finish, er, killing, so after lunch I was fielding text messages from three different people trying to get to Nara that night. Liz decided to come down on a few hours' notice, which she could do with her JR pass on shinkansen. Meanwhile, pass-less Karen got stranded on regular trains in a real rainstorm and needed to take a shinkansen to get here anyway. And Camille had her first Kintetsu experience, discovering the limited express the hard way. But I met up with them eventually (though not all at the same time) in Nara. The crowds at Todaiji were rabid but Nara's finest were keeping the crowds orderly (even creating an impressive traffic crossing between two streams of visitors). Then we stayed up till 4 watching the Animatrix.
Saturday we had grandiose visions of swimming at a beach, or even a lake. So we went to Lake Biwa. What a letdown. It was kinda gray so it wasn't that great for swimming anyway, but that didn't stop us from trying to break into a hotel swimming pool. We got worried when we saw the lifeguard coming, but he just told us to take a shower downstairs first. (Typical of Japan, actually. They like things clean and unchlorinated.) Thinking we had just fooled them all, we made it all the way into the locker rooms before little hotel ladies came out and asked for our passes. We would have had to pay $29 for the half an hour left before it closed...so no swimming after all.
That night we met up with Carter and one of Liz's friends for the Kyoto Daimonji festival. Essentially they light up big kanji or shapes in fire on the sides of the mountains surrounding the city. Of course we went up to Arashiyama, out in the middle of nowhere, because the Lonely Planet told us to. The kanji-on-the-mountain thing was kinda overrated. The lanterns in the lake were much cooler. After we'd finished gaping at both, we tried following the crowds back to the station but they all got in cars and left. Finally we asked a kind Kyoto couple out walking their dog for directions; they took us all the way to the station instead despite my repeated pleas not to go out of their way.
Once again, we were up till 4, this time watching Naruto.
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