Brosis vaca?

So I've made it to Kyoto alive. We took the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto yesterday. It was reallly really fast, thus awesome.

Kyoto is much smaller than Tokyo by far, and its much colder (weather reminded me a bit of Pittsburgh, but nearly not as awful). One thing that I noticed about Kyoto is that there is a lot of the "old" left here. For example, you'll be walking down the main stretch and see a department store or Mac store, then next to it is a really really old shinto shrine that seems to have been there for about 100 year. I like the mix of old and new. On our first day, we wondered around in the afternoon and night, and stumbled upon this really awesome, colorful shinto temple. We also stumbled upon lots of geishas. I think they are really pretty. We also found hostess bars, which I learned are bars in which men go in and drink while women who work there drink with them and flirt with them. Weird? Yes.

The next day (today) is the 24th of December, nochebuena for us Cuban. We decided to visit some more temples and castles. First, we went to Nijo Castle, which is the castle in which the Shogun resided in for 200 years while in Kyoto until the Imperial Restoration in 1868. It was really awesome because practically all of it is intact (I guess the allies didn't bomb it during WWII). My favorite part of it is the "nightingale floors", which basically are the floors of the main castle building. The floors squeek when someone walks on it, and it sounds like nightingales, which is meant to prevent people trying to sneak into the building. So basically, if you are a ninja and you walk into this house, the floor will squeek and alarm the guards that you are there sneaking in. Awesome? Yes.

After that we headed to Kiyomizu Temple, which is a temple really high up on the side of a mountain. It had the best views of Kyoto from there. It was beautiful! There was also a "Love Stone". Basically, if you could walk from one rock to another with your eyes closed, your love life would be sucessful. I didn't make it, so I took that as a sign that I need break up with my boyfriend, since we won't be sucessful (sorry dimples!).

As part of our "christmas dinner" we had pizza. And cake. And it was delicious. yum! We also exchanged gifts. This is the strangest Christmas I've ever had. A cool Christmas, but it doesn't feel like Christmas. Christmas for the Japanese people is basically a day which people go out with their significant other and have dinner and exchange gifts. There isn't much of a Christmas spirit here. Oh well, at least I'm having fun!

Ramdon notes: My brother and I are nerds. We like to "bend" things, and make up acronyms. Boys in Kyoto are cuter than in Tokyo. Its weird when people bow to me. I don't know what to do! There is a soda here called "Calpis". When said really fast, it sounds like "cow piss", which is really funny. I love taking really long hot baths, it helps my back spasms.