TUESDAY MARCH 7



Joe and I got up early and walked down the street to kill time before Chikara came to pick us up. We found a
dope little bakery and picked up a few tasty items which we brought back to share with Jim and Sarah. Chikara showed
up on time and drove us East towards Kyoto. He pulled off the highway "for coffee" and took us to a truck stop.
Yes. We went to a Japanese truckstop and it was so damn real.
We all got some noodle soup for breakfast (the pastries were amazing, but just didn't cut it in the face of these
noodles) and got back on the road.



Some cool signage spotted Tuesday morning.



Our first stop in Kyoto was Kinkakuji - the golden temple. Here's us arriving at the entrance gate.



Golddigger.



Lovely structure at the exit of Kinkakuji.



After Kinkakuji, Chikara took us to a brand new museum which just opened up in January. Shiguriden is a museum
of poetry and its $14 million structure was sponsored largely in part by Nintendo. Inside, visitors can learn about
100 different ancient Japanese poems written by 100 different poets, as featured on the original Nintendo trading cards
created around 1889.



The floor of the main room of the museum is covered with 70 computer monitors which are controlled by handheld
Nintendo DS devices. A computerized version of the original Nintendo poetry card game appears and everyone
in the room can play together. Very very cool.



The monitors on the floor also show a huge map of Kyoto. You can use your controller to locate different spots
around town. Here, a Buddhist monk visiting the museum shows where his temple is on the map.



Joe playing one of the other interactive games at Shigureden. For us Gaijin, this just involved a lot of
blind guessing and some bowing... but it was still cool.



The original Nintendo trading cards.



The rock garden lining the outer perimeter of Shigureden.



Homies.



I have no idea.


LATER THAT DAY