Arrival to Kyoto, walking around and fireworks

With trip to Kyoto looming I woke up early and checked out once I got myself settled for trip. Alas as fun as it had been time to leave Shikoku, for now.

Originally I had considered stopping at Okayama to revisit famous garden there but apart from a) not wanting to spend close to 1000 yens for coin lockers I also had some time limit for Kyoto. I wanted to buy cd from specific store that's quite far away. And there's that fireworks I had found on previous day.

So I skipped the Okayama. Maybe some other day. It's not that far away from Kyoto and conveniently lies in Shinkansen path so easy place to visit.

Arriving to Kyoto first thing I did notice was that it indeed is quite a hot place. Shikoku had been much more pleasant in terms of heat. Here it again blazed. First thing was again to get rid of the heavy bags I was carrying so straight to hotel it was. Luckily no problems leaving bags there either.

 Not sure why but photo of this appears quite often from people who go to Kyoto.

 Kyoto was unsurprisingly also clad of women clad in yukata's. Have to admit I do find that very attractive clothing. Would love to take photos of those a lot but don't think it's appropriate to start asking random women if it would be okay to take photo of them(one I saw today had particularly stunning one. First time I saw yukata with stars rather than flowers as pattern. Remind to self. If you buy yukata for somebody make sure it's star patterned).

Now here's thing I was mulling over. I need to go to HMV Kyoto store(cd store). I want to buy newest single of Kalafina and with that comes ticket to tomorrows mini-live. That's why it has to be HMV Kyoto. There's 7 HMV stores and this is basically only one I could go reasonably.

HMV Kyoto is very, very far away from hotel. But I also don't have any real plans for today after original meeting got cancelled. So what to do? Well I opted to walk to the store. I had noticed in map there was big green area on between and I figured I can always look what's around.

Maybe not best of plans in hindsight...

I want this cheap gas to Finland!

Nice to see some other colour than just green.

Now first issue with my plan(apart from walking around kilometer after kilometer in 35 degrees. I drank 4 liters by the time I came back to hotel!) was that the green area in map...Was imperial palace. Duh. Went there last year. Still it's pretty park. Thought about taking Japanese guided tour(last year English) but seems it was closed. Saturday+obon?

Still as wide roads as I remember.

 Don't recall these pink trees.

 Those roads are wiiiiiide!

Still. Soldiering on(it would be about 7km walk or so from my hotel...In this heat!) I moved toward the store passing various small stores on the way. Then I ran into familiar sight.

I passed that area first time I was in Kyoto when I was going toward the botanical garden of Kyoto. Mulled bit about going there but decided not enough time to really enjoy it.

 This part of Kyoto has this sort of rivers a lot.

Eventually found the store, got the cd(and more crucially the ticket) and headed back. Slightly different route though.

 Got to give to Japanese. They study in style. That's a school building!

Moving on I ran into some sort of shrine with heavy wild boar theme. God of wild boars?

 Moving on I was approaching home spot. This was yet another familiar sight from the first trip to Kyoto. Manga museum. 800 yen entrance fee bit too much when I'm with deadline for the fireworks. I'm not THAT fast reader so I could get better value by buying manga for 800 yen! Also I had another goal in mind...

 This! Nojo castle. Another spot I had seen in map and this time I hadn't gone there. Not yet castles visited in Kyoto.

And not visited today either. Was so close to closing time with long lines and 600 yen fee that I figured I couldn't really get enough time there to warrant 600 yen. I can visit it on monday or wednesday with more time to enjoy. Early to close on 4pm though...

So with this I headed finally to the hotel. All in all it was actually quite pleasant walk despite the heat except that I had also developed two issues by now:

a) I had burned my skin a bit! I had suncream but I think issue is I sweated so much that it lost effect a bit.
b) shoe sores! Ouch. Well luckily not too harmful for regular walking but stairs would turn to be issue.

My hotel room.

Not sure how well it shows on picture(I was in a rush to get to first train. Not disaster if I miss but still) but that's nice way to cope with heat. There's stream of mist being blown down. Nice feel to walk below.

Firework was near station called kita-itami. From Kyoto to Osaka and then change of train. JR pass covered it all. Quick look around told me that this station doesn't likely get too many tourists in a year and likely lions share of this year today. Nice quiet looking place to live though.

I had misread the map a bit and thought it was SOUTHERN green area where launch platfor was so headed toward south. Then I started to think "why is every Japanese going NORTH?". Now generally when you are looking for event it's probably fairly good idea to follow any big group of Japanese. Odds are good they are going to the same place. So u-turn and enjoying sight of many many yukata's(both by women and men). Train line crossing took bit time when we had to wait for 3 trains to pass before it came green but overall it was nice little walk in cooling evening.

 Quite a crowd and seemed to be particularly popuplar place for young couples.

Definitely well planned event with your usual Japanese festival stuff of food stalls, outdoor toilets etc. Men-specific toilets didn't have a door though. Hopefully you don't mind standing there with stream of people walking behind you :D

Now I took lots of photos and videos(3 I put in last). Not sure how well they show up though. My camera isn't good on darkness and fireworks aren't exactly easy target but I found my camera has specific mode for fireworks. Not sure what it really does but sounded good enough to use. Hopefully pictures aren't too bad.

About 4000 explosives were shot in the ~45 minutes it lasted.

 Surprisingly good pictures even if I say so myself. Not pro material but was expecting lot worse. Guess the program DOES make some difference.

 One thing about taking pictures was though that timing was tricky to get right. Especially as it takes photo for a while during which hand needs to stay as still as possible.

Well. Tomorrow is the Kalafina mini-live and then I'll come to see the Daimonji bon fires. Hopefully I can see them. I tried to google good place to watch it but not sure how good place it is really. And likely not that good photographs as it's again in darkness...