Night Time = Time To Put The Feet Up and Sleep!

24th October, 2006 - Somehow we managed to have enough energy to head out that evening... though not far... just around the corner to Kyōto Station, now much quieter that the business day had come to an end (in fact it was almost other-worldly in the lack of people). There's a lot of decent restaurants in Kyōto Station (check out here for maps), so if you're located around this area you'll find yourself well looked after... and it's very convenient.

I never got sick of seeing Kyōto Tower. Not because it's such an architectural marvel, or a beacon to good taste - far from it - just because it's just so "loud and proud". There's no mistaking it for, say a temple. No siree... at 131 metres in height, it's about as bold a mark on the Kyōto skyline as you could ask for. Still haven't been up there though... I guess, every tourist has their limits, and going up Kyōto Tower was mine. There's also a very nice izakaya here... or there was.

Back at our apartment - weekly mansion thankyou - T-chan had retired early, foot-sore and uncomfortable.... but like the great trooper she is, she was still scouting out good places to eat using the Hot Pepper magazine that she'd picked up earlier that evening. Hot Pepper is a bit of a staple for value-hungry people... it's a free "coupon" magazine full of adds... and coupons of course. I think you can still get them...

 Thanks to a 100 yen shop pedometer, we had been keeping track of our steps... over the last four days we'd been averaging between 10 and 20,000 steps per day. Ok - I'm not sure how much I'd trust a pedometer from a 100 yen shop, but my feet were telling me that we'd been walking enough. We most probably averaged very close to the 20,000 steps per day mark over the two weeks we were in Kansai. We often put our sons high energy levels down soley to this trip.

I got to know this balcony quite well. Whilst my wife had gone cold turkey from the moment that she'd found out she was pregnant... (and I'm always impressed at how strong she was). I on the other hand had come to the idea of quitting much more slowly. It's not that I didn't want to. I did. But as most people know who have smoked (and I was a pack-a-day smoker), it's a very hard thing to give up. And Japan is (or at least was) a very, very bad place to give up smoking. So I often found myself out on the balcony, trying not to be inconspicuous for T-chan's benefit. I'm not sure how successful my consideration was however....

O'yasumi T-chan... Hope your feet get some rest. Compared to today, the next day was going to be a BIG day. Nara.