Winter peonies, souvenir shops and other weird happenings

Just when you think you know everything, the world has millions of ways of reminding you that that's about as far from the truth as you can go. Long time no haiku, so here we go:

日本まだ　不思議なものね　冬牡丹
Japan is still very strange - winter peony

The translation sounds even worse than the original, I know, but the point is just what I wrote on the top - just when you think you've seen it all along comes something strange, like winter peonies with the cute little straw umbrellas protecting them. Here's some other examples from last weeks:

Just when you think that EVERY single temple in this country has a souvenir shop that sells more or less (usually less) temple-related stuff, like trinkets, foodstuffs and alcohol, the moment you need something temple-related and think that all you need to do is to pop in the souvenir shop and buy it - well, it's then that you manage to happen to find the only temple that DOESN'T have one. Ever been to Daitokuji?

I came via Kyoto last sunday on my way back to Tokyo from Kyushu, because there was 2 things I needed to buy there. Books and nattou. Not any nattou, mind you, but Daitokuji nattou, something I've become comletely addicted to recently. So anyways, first to check the bookstore near Higashi Honganji and then take the bus to Daitokuji and back - sounds like a painless and easy trip, right? Well, if you add carrying several kilos of books, forgetting how long the Kyoto buses take to go to the northern side of the side and getting completely lost to a huge temple ground - which didn't even have the damn nattou on it in the first place... I remember thinking somewhere along the way trying to find my way out of the temple grounds "Fuck the temple, just give my my fucking nattou!" I know, very unlike me... *g* I did find the nattou eventually and managed to drag myself back to Tokyo, but I admit that there were moments of desperation along the way.

Another thing that was proven a myth is the assumed punctuality and superiority of the japanese railway system. If you stay along the bigger cities you might get the illusion that the trains go often and you just need to pop in at the station and lo and behold, there comes the train that takes you anywhere you want. Try travelling in Kyushu. Or more exactly, try crossing Kyushu, go see Aso-san and forget to take note of the schedules of the trains and/or buses that might assure your safe return from there back to the civilized world.

I probably need not mention that this is exactly what we did. I can tell you that it's not fun to get back to the station, wet from the wind and the rain, and then see that the next train goes after 3hrs. Fun isn't exactly the word to use here. And just to make things even better, being first told by the staff at the bus terminal that the only bus to Beppu has gone already, and THEN seeing that there's an hourly express bus to Oita that you just manage to miss because the guy you talked to just didn't happen to think about mentioning it... (not to mention the japanese-english conversation, i.e. me speaking japanese and getting replies in bad english because english is something you talk with foreigners, something that always sets my nerves on the edge)

Add to this the fact that I had had nothing to eat in hours, and I was pretty much ready to kill the guy at the bus information desk.

And maybe the weirdest of all, I've also found out that there is good shochu.