I've figured it out, Japan is a huge shopping mall

A beautiful and diverse one, but still, I can't get over how many stores there are and how many people are constantly filling them. There are huge arcades with stores on every side. In the busy streets, filled with young and extremely stylish patrons, you go with the flow of the crowd and there is little else to be done. It's not a jostling frenzied flow, it's very easy going and colorful. It's fun just to walk around and people watch or to gaze at the myriad products overflowing into the street. You can walk for miles in any direction and never fear that you will run out of arcade.

Unfortunately with everything up to about $5 being in coin form, it's easy to drop a few coins here and there without thinking about it and feel like you're getting a great deal with your pocket change.  This isn't half of what is in my pocket, and it doesn't look like much, but if you were to hand over the change to the left you would be spending 666 yen or about $6.66 (there is a 5 yen piece hidden there, sorry).  The large gold coin in the middle is worth 500 yen alone. 

More specifically...

The other day I was determined to make it to downtown Kyoto. I thought it would be quite a walk, but I had not trekked far when I came to a brightly colored temple across from a busy street filled with shops. It didn't take me long to realize that this was the tourist shopping district. Every other shop sold gift boxed mochi, the rest sold decorative fans, sandals and replicas. Though there were few white devils, there were many MANY asians with cameras. Ok, stereotypes aside, it's all true. ;-)

I walked down this street until I reached the Kamogawa River (Kamogawa = Duck River). Perfectly positioned with a cool breeze blowing off of it, it blocked out the sounds of the city and was lined with young couples. I'm serious. Every two or three meters was a couple sitting side-by-side. Like everything else here, it was incredibly kawaii. Other than the two old fishers (with 10ft poles), I seemed to be the only single visitor.

After my rest at Kamogawa I went back to the street and crossed the bridge. On the other side of the bridge the street changed. Here it was no longer tourist gifts and mochi. Here it was fashion, phones and never-ending youth. And if I thought there were a lot of people on the tourist street, there were many more here. The stores all play english pop music (ahem, Spears and Timberlake) and are overflowing with merchandise and trendy young Nihonjin. There is so much to pay attention to and it goes on forever. If you aren't deep into sensory overload you'll be gently surprised by quiet shrines that are tucked into the explosion of youth culture. They are all over Kyoto, but tucked into the buzzing fashion halls they seem somehow even more venerable.

Warning, not so PC:

They all drive prii and skinny little cars, cuz they're all skinny little people. It's strange relative to the US where one is used to seeing so many large people. Granted, the bone structures have something to do with the contrast, but all those figures about this or that percentage of Americans being clinically overweight really starts to sink in when you're in Japan.

Oh, and yes, they really do talk like that. =D

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