Our Last Evening in Kyoto

After another hot day, everyone is wandering up and down the four-story hostel in their lounging clothes, debating whether or not they want to go to Kyoto's huge summer festival, which takes place tonight in Gion Corner. Normally, there would be no hesitation, but we have all suffered through a long, sweaty day and only the naturally present energy of traveling is keeping us going now... Still, no one really wants to miss the colorful crowds and lit up streets and so most likely we will all get ready and be out the door in the next hour.

Today was our last day in Kyoto; tomorrow we leave to Hiroshima and there begins the countdown toward the day when we meet our host families... Everyone is more than excited to meet their Japanese parents ａｎｄ　ｓｉｂｌｉｎｇｓ. Ｗｅ all mailed postcards to our families this morning...

Since it was our last day here, we had a free day, and everyone split up to see various sites of interest. Some went shopping, others touring... Maggie met up with an old-time friend who toured with her through the city... Vanessa and I visted the Golden Pavillion, which was even more gorgeous in the strong afternoon sun than we had anticipated. (We had actually expected to end up at the zen gardens in the same area, but we apparently haven't quite mastered our skills at reading Japanese yet...)

Being in this country can make you feel like a celebrity; school girls touring the Pavillion asked to take pictures with us, and in total we took about seven different pictures, one each with everyone's camera...

Even though our stay in Kyoto has been short, we have been able to see many more things than we could have hoped for... Midori took us to Gion Corner last night for a performance which demonstrated various Japanese arts, among them tea ceremony, flower arangement, koto playing, dance, puppet theater, and more... We also took a bus tour through Kyoto which took us to see a shrine and two temples... While the tour was enlightening, everyone was unbelievably dehydrated and so coming back to the hostel to take cool showers was, quite frankly, very blissful...

Now as we leave this beautifully preserved city, we move to a new phase in our travels... One which we have been warned will be a very heavy and saddening experience...

Hopefully we will find computers and phones in Hiroshima; most of us have been able to call our loved ones only due to the fact that Tacey has a very useful phone card and is generous enough to let us all make use of it when needed...

Enjoy the heat (I heard it reached 105 in Sonoma today... My, my...)

'Peace out,' says Alan...