Kyoto

September 23
The first week of our journey has past. It seems like we have been travelling forever in one sense and completely have no idea what we are doing in another. Being the impatient person that I have been, because I am working on patience and slowing down, I expected everything to fall into place easily and smoothly. However it has only been ONE WEEK. So I am saying that we are doing extremely well. Working on the computer has been a challenge that we will learn to adjust to as we move from city to city. The challenge being inability to connect to the Internet so that Caleb can get started in his schooling and to check any email. Challenge to organize ourselves from day to day. We have entered into the journey with no plans, purposely. When I am able to let go and allow things to flow as we desire, things go well. As soon as I get stressed out about any issue, things do not seem to go as well. We arrived in Kyoto a few days ago. To all my Japanese friends amazement we arrived in Kyoto without a hotel room. Both of us had spent some time on the Internet while in Tokyo trying to find a room but could not locate anything suitablely priced or easy to book. So we just decided to feel what it is we wanted and to allow it to happen. We wanted a comfortable, reasonably priced, well located place. Arriving in Kyoto we went straight to the Tourist Information. She proceeded to show us the ONE place she had available. There is nothing else she said. Mark felt uneasy about booking it as it left us with little choice. So we headed to the place we had initially wanted to go, Kyoto informaton centre located on the 9th floor of the station building. Here we found a very friendly information officer who found an inexpensive, well located, comfortable room to stay in. While we were booking the hotel, the kids were anxious to find an English bookstore as both of them had read the 2 books they brought with them - so we sent then on their way, alone, to some unkown bookstore. Once done booking we went to locate them, assuming there would be a big bookstore we would easily find. Instead, we found ourselves in giant shopping maze with thousands of people, and no sign of a bookstore. A slight feeling of panic went through both of us. Had we gone too far? Been to free? The Kyoto train station is immense. We asked a girl at a kiosk where the bookstore was, and she was not sure, but thought there was a small one somewhere at the end of the maze. Hmmm... not the news we wanted to hear. We walked around for a bit, but saw nothing. A little more panic set in. We asked someone else, who knew of the large bookstore we were told about at the information booth. We took an elevator up, turned the corner, and there they were, our two kids waiting for us. The kids had searched the store, went back upstairs to information booth, and not finding us, they went back downstairs to wait at the bookstore. They're brilliant!
We realized we had better make some back-up plans and emergency procedures for the future but more importantly we realized that we have to trust each other and just know that we are connected at all times.
We arrived at the hotel in the late afternoon just before the rain started to come down in buckets. There was no shower in the room so we proceeded to the public bath for a wash up. This may sound bizarre, however the public bath was lovely. There is one for men and one for women. It is a large comfortable open tiled room with shampoos, creams, shavers, towels. There are separate little stalls for each person to wash up. After cleaning yourself you proceed to the large hot bath to luxuriate and relax. Upon returnig from this experience you are both invigorated and relaxed. We all just loved it.

Lots to do and see in Kyoto, hundreds of temples, monuments etc. After exploring one temple for 3 hours, the largest in Kyoto, the kids and Mark had had enough. Spent the day riding around on bicycles with a volunteer student from the local university, leading the way, and after the temple tour and lunch, we headed to the cool river running through the centre of the city. There were large stepping stones placed across the river, some in the shape of turtles. Kids and Mark splashed, walked around and even dunk their heads. Was the water clean? A major river running through the middle of this massive metropolitan city? Yes said the student, just dont drink the water... Everyone bathed once we returned to the hotel but it seems that the splashing in the river was the hi-light.
Lianna