New Friends, New Years

New Friends
On Dec 29th, we were invited to go over to Karleen's Co-worker's apartment for dinner. Her name is Thao and she's Australian. We jumped at the chance to, since we really haven't been out since we moved here.

She gave us directions to a place where she would meet us, since she lives in Kyoto, and we don't really know our way around that city yet. When we got to the place, there were 2 white guys there, and they asked if she was Karleen. They said they were friends of Thao and that she was looking at another spot for us. The 2 guys are Chris and Josh, both work for Nova as well. Chris is from Maine and Josh is from Washington, DC. They met while going to University in Washington, and came to Japan together. We finally found Thao and headed back to her apartment.

We all sat around a table and talked the whole night, while Thao made us dinner. It was fantastic. She started with homemade Miso Soup and it was the first time she's made it, so we were like guinea pigs. After that, she made a stir fry with onions, green peppers, meat, noodles, and chili powder...dulish! She finished off the night with desert, a box of Ferrero Rochers. Chris and Josh brought over some cheap Sake to try, so we heated that puppy up and tried it out...it was...cheap. Smelled and tasted like rubbing alcohol. My first venture into Sake territory. They said not to let it jade me, since they have tried good sake and it tastes NOTHING like this. We all looked at our watches around 11, since the last train to Osaka left at 1130. So Karleen and I, and Chris and Josh said our good byes and headed back to Osaka, where we found out that Chris lives on the 6th floor of our building. Rock on! We got back to Osaka, and were heading to a convenience store to pick up a beer or two when Chris suggested going to a bar that was close by. Why the hell not! It was just midnight, and we were so not tired. Besides...it was the weekend AND the start of our holiday!

The 4 of us ventured into a bar called Flyover. We were warmly greeted by the bartender, Yoshi, by him screaming at Chris and coming over to hug him. Apparently, Chris had been here before...a few times. The place was a little hole in the wall, but we had a great time. We drank our faces off until around 4am or so. It was definitely a crazy place.

Chris, Yoshi, and Josh

New Years
On New Years Eve, we met up with the same group again at Kyoto Station. Thao invited all of us to go to a shrine.


It's called the Fushimi-Inari Taisha. It was dedicated to the gods of rice and sake by the Hata family in the 8th century. It has 5 shrines within the area and there is a pathway that goes 4 kms up a mountain and is lined with hundreds of red torii gates. This was truly a cultural experience!

Blurry Group picture taken by a friendly Policeman

The path up to the first shrine was littered with kiosks of food, games, trinkets and other goodies. So, of course, we filled our faces full of wonderful eats, like a bucket of chicken, chicken on a skewer, and Okonomyaki. There was a few types of food that were, how you say...a little strange. The first was sweet fish. It's fish on a stick that's been sweetened. Yummy.

The only one who was interested was Chris, so he went for it. We all sat around him in this tent, getting warmed up, watching him as he ate a whole fish.

It's like watching National Geographic!

The poor little bugger didn't stand a chance

We must have been the best advertisement ever, because after we got into the tent, it started filling up. Geijin brings in all the customers!

The next was, what we thought was Quail, but we were soon corrected as it was fried swallow! Thao tried this a little later, I'll get back to it.

It still had the head and everything!!!

We walked around a bit more, lookin at all the tents and booths and scoping out our next meal. We decided to head up the mountain and see what awaits us. Here we found the beginning of the torii gates.

Karleen and Thao

Josh and Chris

Beware of the dangerous, fish eating, Geijin Ninja!

We headed on through the gates and started walking. It was so surreal...this is how we are spending our New Years...on a mountain, in a shrine, in Kyoto!

We met up with someone that Thao knew, Erik, a fellow Canadian. He joined us on our adventure. So we walked...and walked. We came to an area that we realized was the first of many graveyards. A lot of them had these fox dudes on them.


The fox is considered the messenger of Inari (god of cereal grains) and the Japanese traditionally see the fox as a sacred and mysterious figure capable of possessing humans. Apparently the fox's favorite place to enter a human is under the fingernails...who knew! Also, the fox has a key in it's mouth, which is to the rice granary.

We kept walking and found ourselves at a crossroad. The path made a loop, so you could keep walking, or you could just sit around and enjoy the view. Karleen and I decided just to relax and chill out while everyone made the rest of the path. Our plan was to meet back up at 11:45 so we could celebrate New Years together. While the rest went off, we went and took some more pictures around the area.


As you may have seen in the pictures...it was quite chilly out that day. I mean, it was about 4 above, but being outside for so long, really got to us...

My wife is Darkman!

We went back to the meeting point and waited for everyone. They didn't show until almost 5 to, because they got a little lost on the path...which was a loop...don't ask me.

We all counted down (in Japanese) and brought in the new year with song. Sadly, no fire works were shot in Kyoto, which TOTALLY sucks because we were in a PRIME spot to see them... oh well.

We headed back down the mountain for more cooked meat and food. Thao and Erik decided that they wanted to try the fried swallow. Of course we were there to take pictures of the moment.

Thao and Erik

One of the New Years traditions around this shrine is that you must run, from the bottom, up to the top of the mountain, and you will have good luck for the rest of the year. Since we already went to the top of the mountain, and it was kind of crazy....
...we decided to head separate ways.

Chris and Josh headed back for Osaka (I think) to go to a bar, while Thao, Erik, Karleen and I went farther into Kyoto to a nightclub. At this point it was already 1am.

During our trip to the club we took this picture:
The club was called Metro. We had to pay 2,000 yen ($20!!!) each to get in. When we got settled it was a pretty cool place. There was a band playing, but not an average band, a band that only plays with drums. Too cool. It was almost tribal, and people were going nuts for it. There was a good number of us geijin running around the place, so we weren't the center of attention. We danced for a while, and talked some more. Another band went up around 3am, and they kicked some funky but. It was almost a Funk Jazz band, headed up by a female singer, who belted out some Japanese songs, and tore out some "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". Overall, I would love to see that band play a full set, they were just that good.

After the band got off, we looked at our watches...it was past 4am. Holy S**t! Karleen and I said bye to Thao, and we headed on home. We took a freakin long train to get home, since it was new years and they had "special" trains running. We didn't actually get back into the Shin-Osaka station until after 6am, where we saw that McDonalds was open....Breakfast time, baby!!! We grabbed some McMuffins and walked home. We ate, I posted, and we slept in until 3pm.

It was an amazing New Years, one that we won't forget. I certainly won't forget it anytime soon, mostly because I only had one beer for the whole night! That's right folks...Cam had a dry New Years...

...I gotta write that down on the calendar.