We went to Osaka and Kyoto, and they were both fucking ace.
We took a midnight highway bus and some ambien to Osaka, and woke up groggy and confused. First we went to the aquarium with the express purpose of meeting their whale shark. It was a really pretty fish.

Tennoji koen is a place where, allegedly, down on their luck types perform enka through crackly karaoke boxes. Unfortunately, we must have been there on their scheduled day off. There were some pretty cool statues though.

We saw some Osaka bands play at a club owned by The Boredoms. Thanks kat! I have found that gigs here in japan customarily have a ratio 1 good band to every 3 shit-awful bands.

This time the first band were great, fast and funny. The next two were shitballs and the headliners, down from Sapporo, appeared to have been going without a wardrobe change since the early eighties and would have fit right in a Robert Downey Jr. movie. Their music was totally forgettable. Luckily they detracted from their lack of talent, youth and attractiveness, by employing two young ladies to perform a stage show.

One young lady, who was dressed up in fishnets, a skimpy corset and vampire teeth, took some time to stick pins into the webbed bits between her fingers, then drain the blood into a glass of wine. Then another young lady came along dressed in some type of beggars cloth, which the vampire lady ripped off her to reveal her bra and knickers. Beggar’s boob fell out of the bra, which i thought was an accident, but no,vampy whipped her a bit and took her bra completely off. She then got some more of the little needle things with feathers on the end (pretty!) and stuck them into Beggar’s webby bits, then through the skin on her boobs and then through her top and bottom lip! Of course Beggar stopped resisting after that, and whaddya know! Actually began to enjoy it, even starting to whip Vampy and lick her tongue. It was all done with the professionalism and skill one might expect from a fourth form drama class, which added hugely to it’s appeal.

We then strolled around Dotombori, drinking beer and forcing down takoyaki.

We stayed in a love hotel, and woke up groggy and confused, ready for a day in Kyoto.

As we really had only one day in Kyoto, we decided to bypass all the big-name temples and shrines, and spend the day out in Arashiyama. It was sunny and hot, and relatively uncrowded. Tenryu-ji is a World Heritage Cultural Site, and was just beautiful and calming. Witness the over-the top Japaneseness of the following pic. That heron is such a show boat!

Then we walked up through some beautiful bamboo forest, stopping off at temples along the way. Other tourists gradually dropped off, and at some places, we were all alone.

One shrine we visited, inside the bamboo forest, was definitely off the Japanese tourists list of must-sees. The tatami was soft and spongy, i was sure my foot was going to go straight through, and it had an acrid musty smell. We sat there for a while, but it was so silent and run down that it was creeping us out. We opened up one of the sliding cupboards too see what was inside, and there was a personal collection of things, age-stained photos and knick-knacks. It felt very wrong and trespassy, and we left.

we then headed down the hill, had a delicious meal of cold soba and cold beer in an exceptionally cold restaurant, and then sat on the side of the river, drinking beer, watching the sun go down, listening to shamisen and watching ukai.

view the rest of the photos here