Kyoto, Japan. May '10

kyoto 082
Originally uploaded by jfitzsimmonds

Travel Philosophy number 3 : Just Do It. You wont remember the cost or travel times, you will remember the experience.

I had access to a very budget flight from Sydney to Kyoto via Cairns on the outbound and Gold Coast on the return and jumped at the chance of taking a long weekend there, despite 15hr journeys in each direction and having to factor in the hotel etc etc. Too good an opportunity to pass up.







As it happens, and in fact I still have only revealed this to a select few out of embarrassment at my own stupidity, I completely missed my out bound 6.00 Am flight on the Friday morning. For a whole day no one on earth really new where I was, as I lay in bed feeling like an idiot and trying to decide whether A. I went back to work 3 days later pretending I'd been to Japan,. B. Just came clean about it - after all I had been working to 10pm the night before, finished packing at 2.00 am and my taxi pick up was for 4 Am - it was understandable!. or C. just bought a brand new one way ticket over there, damn the expense and have just 2 nights away instead of the allready crazy 3.

So after some deliberation I went for C - Im not even going to go there with what that cost me, of course if I hadnt done it I still would have been wasting money as id allready paid for non-refundable tickets.

Anyway...moral of the story was. As soon as I walked outside my Kyoto hotel the next morning with that buzz of discovering something new and feeling like my life was enriched because of it, the money and drama was forgotten.

Yes I only had 2 nights away and a 30 hour journey, but i zipped around with a Kyoto travel pass, visited Zen Temples, Rock Gardenes, mingled with Stunningly Kimonoed ladies having Sunday walks in the park, wandered through the floating world at night time having my own memoirs of a Geisha experience, cracked up at the uniquely Japanese Quirkiness of heated automaticaly opening toilet seats complete with choice of bum sprays and stunning assortments of vending machine consumables on every corner.


I was overwhelmed by bowing super polite service industry staff who left me walking out of shops with a huge grin every time. I even squeezed in a blissed out 'OMG' travel moment walking stocking footed past paper screened slide doors in a labyrinth of a temple as a room full of ladies kneeling in kimono finery attended a Sunday service, while others sat and contemplated timeless intricate and exquisitely planned gardens.

Would I do it all again - absolutely! It actually cracks me up now, to look at the map at the top of this blog and see just how far I went for a weekend!.