Kyōto (京都市)

Okay, I admit it. I have to take it back. Osaka station might be able to dock with a spaceship, but Kyoto station is there to dock with the mother ship. With a population of almost 1.5 million, the station managed to get a floor to represent every 100'000 people. It's fanciest display is also attached to the bottom edge of steps on the larger staircase at the top of the building. It is made up of about 100 LEDs per stair edge, and then distributed over about 100 steps, making up a full color display which is able to show a surprising amount of detail if you don't stand too close.

16 kilometres of walking later, with half a dozen temples, each one seemingly being on their own "little" hill. Unfortunately, Kyōto appears to have been discovered by the tourism industry, which quickly built themselves coach parking lots that would put any bus depot at home to shame. But stepping a little outside of those tourism paths and we quickly found ourselves covered in cherry blossoms again. And we also discovered about the tradition of tying black twine around a large rock and then placing it on a path as a sort of 'No entry' sign. What they didn't tell us was how to rake sand such that you can create cones almost as big as me, with sharply edged 50 degree walls.

Pro tip, make no assumptions about where to go when you are trying to transfer to the subway from the normal railway. I.e. coming from a train in the second level and changing to the subway one floor higher, on the third floor. Three stops later on the same subway line, and we find ourselves three levels underground. I'm told some of the bus depots in this country operate with a similar scheme.

Altitude Curve