Kyoto night time strolls

Last night I was in the mood for some company. A conversation. To use my voice for something other than "origato" and "room 620 please". I'd been on MSN to a few friends and it left me feeling strange and isolated and empty.

When I left the hotel, two girls has parked their stereo on wheels (Daihatsu something tiny) and were break dancing. Full on back spins on the pavement. That put a smile on my face; crazy city.

I walked the Ponto-cho area where reading those little plaques that everyone else ignores, I learned this use to be the gay part of town, many moons ago. Useless fact of the day.

I walked past some great names of bars. In addition to Bar Bollocks there was Lon Don (a British pub) and Selfish Cream (I guess when one receives an orgasm but doesn't give in return!).

I walked down the tiniest of alleys, as long as they were brightly lit. It's hard to tell a restaurant from a brothel as they are both so beautifully maintained! One alley with lots of bright lights had a sign in English saying "health, lipstick" so on cursory glance it seemed fine to walk down. It turned out to be a dead end alley of strip clubs. I laughed a lot when the men had to turn me around and send me back out.

Another alley turned into a string of gentlemen's bars mid way through. They all had middle aged pervy touts on the door who all perked up when I came into view. I considered turning around and going back but I just fixed my eyes at the end of the alley way, stood up straight which left me a good confident foot taller than all the creepy men and walked on past the Japanese cat calls.

I worked out what some of the pink places that look Pachinko Parlours actually are. They have chat rooms and chat phone lines to talk to - women! "Nurse call centre" was the name of one. They are advertised by posters inside the rooms; a group of young men were staring at the posters intently and I am sure that some of them were illustrated with drawings and not even photos!

There are also places with ambiguous names like International Friendship Connection, which is a bit of the same. The best name was Selfish Partner Centre. Open that up in Finland and you'd have a big queue of women yelling "and he never helps around the house, he's always at the pub"...

I was feeling far too low to go into a bar alone, not that I minded being in a bar alone but I didn't want to be the only person. There was no sound of music or people coming in or out of any of the bars and sitting alone was just too tragic.

I found all the young folk instead sitting by the banks of the river, in friendly groups, drinking, playing music and singing - quite badly, and letting off sparklers. On the far side of the bank was a lone trombonist. He was also very bad. But he made me feel less lonely so I sat and listened to him until he got a note right.

I returned to one of my first eating places for dinner. That might sound like cheating but I got it all wrong the first time and ordered from a waitress rather than putting money into a machine, to receive a ticket for my order, which is taken by the waitress. Now I can get it right and order from the machine with all the confidence of a local. It's a fast, fresh place and I am always the only girl there as the guys seem to like the unlimited rice and miso soup that comes with your order and guzzle that all day long. Fed and feeling local, it was a nice way to end the day.