Day 30. Saturday, August 14, 2010. In Kyoto.
Got up at 6:30 and had only two things on my mind: move everything to the Utano YH and find a bicycle shop.
The YH is a showcase for JYH. Spacious, clean and is set on lovely grounds, but unfortunately is quite far from nightlife areas. Lots of families and very few individual travelers like me.Today is the second day of Obon so the chance of finding a bicycle shop appeared dim. As I had to return to Uno House to return the room key I thought I'd check the bike shop at the corner. It was open and a youngish Matsunaga-san was able to put on new brake shoes and make other adjustments in a very short time. What a relief. Headed back to the YH with an eye out for an Osho.
With a little more than 500 m to go I spotted a foreigner lugging two heavy-looking shoulder bags. Dismounted and walked with him the rest of the way. He introduced himself as Richard, an American passport holder, born in California, raised by Jehovah's Witnesses in Spain, a long-time resident of the UK, particularly Edinburgh, a father of two grown sons, divorced, at one time homeless man, manager of a YH in Iceland and come to Japan yesterday after a number of months in Hunan, China. The YH accepted his story that he is awaiting money from Western Union, but as I heard similar stories as a YH manager, he's probably broke. Quite an interesting person to chat with nevertheless and likely to attract sympathy especially here in Japan.
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