Day 5 Part 2 Wednesday 2025 05 21 Market and Karaoke

 We traverse through the streets of Kyoto. It's quieter than Tokyo, but feels more steeped in history. A lot of wooden buildings and charming gardens and streams appear out of nowhere. What I remember though, was the heat and humidity. If you'll recall, these are one of my many weaknesses. I'm pretty soon in a muck sweat as middle age nerds are wont to do. 

We make it to the hotel but for some reason, there is nobody at the counter. There is even a sign to that effect, as if this is a normal occurrence and maybe we can phone them? The hotel is tiny. More like a short hallway of rooms stacked on top of each other. Upstairs we can hear the cleaning staff cleaning, but they aren't paid to deal with us. They pass by us on the way to get more supplies from their van and clearly are used to guests being utterly lost, staring at a sign on an abandoned counter.

We phone the number but whatever magickery that is an e-sim apparently won't let us complete the call. My wife manages to send them a message via Expedia and gets the information needed to get into our hotel. It was the oddest experience. We just got a code and.. let ourselves in.

After we decompress and settle in, it's off to Nishiki market. An ancient market that used to be for seafood, then was slowly converted into a highly efficient tourist trap of some cute stores interspersed with the same types of meat on a stick restaurants. There was even a very ancient knife store there but I have enough nice knives (two) and had no wish to deal with whatever questions might arrive from packing an extremely sharp knife in my suitcase. That and they were closed, so.

We've been stuck in this habit of buying the odd foods from different places along our travels, eating it there, and in AGGREGATE, this makes a meal. My partner thinks this is a perfectly acceptable way to have a meal. I feel like I'm just waiting for the meal to actually start. Although you wouldn't know it by looking at me, with my ample gut and respectable love handles, my brain seems to think I haven't had an actual meal for days. Which is to say that's exactly what we did here. We had a wonderful stuffed crepe (the Japanese seem enamoured with euro/French food, crepes, coffees, baked things), then a stick of meat. Then a single dumpling each. Then we shared some curry buns. Dinner done! 

It's a grazing style which I'm sure fits in with the more gregarious antelopes and international spies, I assume.

Then we continue to wander around different picturesque neighbourhoods. Temples around every corner. Google translate often doesn't offer up any interesting facts at these sites other than "no photography allowed", "Services every Thursday and Fri", and the like.

It's still hot, still humid. We survive on buying many, many drinks at various vending machines. Usually unusual (for us) drinks. They are cold and almost always delicious, outside of the aforementioned Pocari Sweat, none of them had names that gave us pause. But mainly, they were cold enough to stop us from overheating, too much.

I'm constantly using my phone to translate every single sign, looking for those sweet, sweet plaques. Most don't offer anything new, they are mundane or expected. 

This sign says "yes, you can walk through here". Why is there a 5? Why are there what looks to be two sting rays mating? Why do we need a sign when it's pretty clear you can walk through there. 

This sign was great because there was no indication it was anything other than, say, advertising the hours of a particularly conservative office supply store. No, it's a karaoke spot. KARAOKE.

I'm a big fan of karaoke. Maybe because I did quite a bit of choir as a youngster and enjoy singing, maybe because I enjoy singing to a crowd while inebriated. Well, I'm not sure you need any more reasons than that, but yeah, I enjoy it.

The partner and I decide we'll keep going to different neighbourhoods but our kids are tapping out. There are only so many quaint alleyways they can look at. Only so much vending machine drinks can do to bribe them along. Luckily they are older and can just make their own way back to the hotel.

I'm determined to sing some karaoke, but first must appease the partner. More walking! More muck sweating! More darling alleyways!

Kyoto being a very very old city, home of the emperor, there is no end to the quaint beautiful streets and houses.

But eventually we reach the end of sightseeing, and it's time for Karaoke! I decide on a well reviewed bar (https://cabaret.crayonsite.info/) that has it's own live DRUMMER! 

It was just us two. Now my wife is a great singer, but really only sings at home or with friends. It's me who needs the audience, I'm not ashamed to admit. But at this bar, it was just the two of us (it was really early), and the two owners, I think. The drummer who had a fantastically tight haircut and a love for all things music. And the bartender, a lovely woman who always seemed to be having a good time.

We started singing, just taking turns, and the drummer and bartender seem to really enjoy it. And for about an hour it was concert for two. Me steadily drinking more and more and everyone having a good time.

Then out of nowhere a pub-crawl arrives, about 10 folks from, well it sounded like they were from New York. My partner, mid song, has to finish her song, but gives me a look that very much said "I can't believe I'm singing in front of strangers this is all your fault you should really be up here what the hell". Now me and the missus are old hands at karaoke, enthusiastic amateurs. Both of us sang quite a lot in our youth so we know the ins and outs of a microphone and general, uhm, singiness.

The bar crawl picks, not much to my surprise, the standard standard, the standard of standards, the Big One, "My Way", by Frank Sinatra. Because New York/New Jersey, a certain generation, etc. And they pull one of us up there to help out. I give it my crooniest croon to ever croon to everyone's delight (or if not delight, then decently suppressed disgust, which is a win in my book). 

Turns out they don't all know each other but just are on the same bar crawl. One of them is a concert pianist and he treats us to some Mozart... Beethoven. Yes, I am a bit of a knuckledragger when it comes to actual classical music. But that is genuinely delightful. The drummer plays along, and while the concert pianist is a little chagrinned at the start I think he realizes he's playing to a bunch of inebriated middle aged plus folks just having a good time and just let's it go. The drummer's gotta drum, man. 

We finish the evening and head home, first day of Kyoto all done. At least I was no longer in a muck sweat.