my morning wake up and breakfast – rice porridge again. at guesthouse yougendo they serve breakfast in individual rooms for each bedroom, each room being in the old japanese house style, overlooking a garden, and seated on the floor.

after breakfast i checked out and began my trek to kyoto, my destination. i was booked into a fabric dyeing/batik course at 3pm, and although nara was only an hour a way i left pretty early, hoping to stop off and see parts of nara that seem to be on the must see list. the 15 minute train was easy, and once i go to the station i walked (bags and all) to the other station, and managed to do some shopping on the way. i had planned to leave my suitcase in a locker at the next station, go off and explore the park and then come back ready to catch my 1pm train to kyoto. but alas, all the lockers were full (although it took me a while to work this out) and so, with the help of the information desk woman, i decided to head up to the park with my suitcase. which meant getting on a local bus, and following the crowds. and as it turned out, the deer.

nara park is famous for it’s deer. there’s a reason they are there, but i didn’t really take that i. the deer were all a bit too much for me, and i didn’t last very long there. i bough street side sushi for a lunch snack in a park (no deer!) and then just headed back. the temples were big, but also full of thousands of people, and i just wanted some quiet time!

but the deer were cute, albeit hornless…

once back on the train, i worked out i needed to get to a far flung suburb of kyoto for my class. i’d left myself an hour, and luckily i did because the bus did actually take the whole hour to get there. but i was pretty happy once there, and proceeded to choose my design, paint the wax on the fabric and then dye the fabric (well, some of this was done for me):

and then the finished project:

this is my japanese door curtain. the maple leaves for autumn, the eggplant because i like it as a vegetable, the jizo for my year that’s been, and the words that came with it that say ‘let’s put out hands together and think of happiness’ (aroundabout). i was pretty happy with what i’d made and happy to have gone out exploring the city with a purpose.

then i had dinner at the restaurant at the end of the street; chicken kaarage and salad.

and then finally checked into the hostel i’d been looking forward to (the acorn women’s guesthouse) but which was the biggest disappointment and kinda weird and crazy:

the biggest thing for me was the bedroom:

tiny (it should normally sleep 3, but there were only 2 the night i was there), and windowless. and then a gas heater, which my roommate had on for ages and i finally asked if i could turn off, for fear of dying from gas inhalation. and even then the night was a restless one, worrying about the lack of fresh air and how to deal with it. turns out i like a window in bedrooms, and am happy to sleep with cold air around me, as long as i am warm and snuggled up.