Running Around Kyoto

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Geo: 35.01, 135.75

We were up again at 730am so we could check out of the house by 8am. I'm impressed at how fast our group has been able to pick up and move this trip, how in sync we are for the most part. We occasionally get slowed down going into stores or stopping to pee but not the way any other non-guided group would.

Back at Kyoto Station, we loaded our luggage into storage lockers for the day. Since it was early, all the large lockers were still free. Billy and I had built in time buffers and we were getting around faster than we expected. Our Tea Ceremony wasn't until 10am, and we'd arrived at 9am. So wandered around looking for breakfast. Nearly everything was still closed, I'm guessing because it's Kyoto's nightlife district. We did find a Tully's open, an American coffee chain from back home, so we got food there. I got some good coffee and ordered Japanese pancakes. Similar to American pancakes but loaded with custard and fruit.

The traditional Tea Ceremony was really neat to watch. The woman explaining and demonstrating was fascinating, her every movement was precise and poised. She had a grace I definitely don't have. We weren't allowed to take pictures during the actual demonstration because she wanted us to take in the entire ceremony, all five senses but we took pictures before and after. Then she let us make our own tea. Its not part of a traditional ceremony (the host makes the tea for the guests) but she wanted us to know what it was like. We got our own decorative tea bowl with ground matcha, some of which were beautifully hand painted (mine had chickens, Chris' had horses, Billy's was covered in cherry blossoms), a wooden whisk for mixing, a napkin and a sweet. In Japanese tea you do not add cream and sugar. The sweet is eaten first, and then the tea balances it out. So we ate our sweets as she moved guest to guest pouring hot water into our bowl. Then we whisked the tea until it was frothy. Once we had a nice foam after about a minute, we picked up the bowl with two hands (one underneath, one on the side). You rotate the bowl (I think it was clockwise) so that you can view the "face" of the bowl as you drink. The face is the more decorated part, and its so the guest can enjoy the beauty of the bowl while drinking. "Every bowl has a face, just like human," she said. The tea tasted good, just like you'd expect fresh green tea would taste. Different than the watery green tea served in restaurants, though. I fell in love with the concept of the Traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony. I would love to be a guest at one someday.

Most of our day in Kyoto was hitting up a small bucket list of touristy places. Its all we had time for and it wasn't even close to enough! I'd probably need three solid days to see and enjoy all I wanted. Sadly, the only shrine we had time for was Fushimi Inari and we didn't visit ANY temples. That being said, there wasn't anywhere we went where I'd have wanted to spend less time. We did the best we could with the number of days we had.

After the tea ceremony, we bused towards Philosopher's Walk. Kyoto only has two subway lines but their bus system is well done. We walked along the canal taking pictures and stopping in shops. I ended up buying an adorable tote bag with a bear and camping pictures and words on it. So me. :D I can't wait for summer so we can camp again. We also bought some fabric drink coasters.

Eric really wanted ramen, and we happened to pass a small shop with barely enough seats for the seven of us. The restaurant claimed on their menu, "Most Famous Ramen in Kyoto!!" The Tokyo ramen was my absolute favorite but this was still very good. I got an egg cracked in mine (I've learned to add egg to everything here), and Chris actually got curry ramen. Which he enjoyed so much it got all over his pants!

Next we bused an hour to the other side of Kyoto to see the iconic Arashiyama Bamboo Forest. I see pictures of this place all over the internet. I knew ahead of time it was a relatively small forest but when we got there it was actually BIGGER than I expected. We wandered around taking pictures for a little bit. If I'd had more time, I would have explored this place a lot more. It goes up into the hills and there's a monkey park, I heard.

Beth really wanted to shop at Nishiki Market so we headed there as our last stop before we had to leave Kyoto. I loved this market. Its a huge indoor market of shops and stalls. We had about an hour to explore and it wasn't nearly enough time. Chris and I did not escape without first buying $200 in Japanese hand-painted ceramics, though. We try to buy cultural art pieces on our bigger travels. In Alaska we came back with a giant moose painting. On our Europe trip, we bought a cuckoo clock from the Black Forest in Germany, and a Venetian mask from a little mask shop in Venice, Italy. Now we have a black tea bowl hand-painted with gold branches and leaves (along with the wooden whisk and tea scoop) and a white sake set hand-painted with colorful blossoms. Double win. We also found more of the crack strawberry mochi, and some freshly cooked seafood to snack on.

By 415pm it was time to head back to the train station. We grabbed our luggage from the lockers and said goodbye to Billy, Michelle and Mai- they were staying another night in Kyoto (in a capsule hotel!), heading down to Osaka for a day and then flying home from there. The four of us had to be home sooner so we were flying out of Tokyo the next day (airfare was cheaper). Funny story, was my work had changed its vacation policy. Chris and I actually have five more days off work once we return home that we didn't anticipate having when we booked our flights. It was going to cost us $700 just to change our flights, though, let alone additional hotel and food costs. So, we decided to just book a second vacation altogether. We also miss our 1.5yr old daughter like crazy and a family trip sounds amazing now. My parents and sister have been taking good care of her while we were gone. She also came down with pink eye a couple days ago and had to make a doctors visit but she's doing better now my dad said. I can't wait to hug her.

We found our Shinkansen to Tokyo and loaded up on Bento and snacks for the nearly 3 hour ride. I mostly just blogged and finished my book the whole way.

We only had two short JR train rides from Tokyo station to Asakusabashi station but the last train was canceled for some reason. It was there but it wasn't leaving the station. We had no idea when it would start again and our stop was only one exit down the line. So rather than wait around or waste time finding an alternate route, we just walked 20min to the next station. We easily found our hostel for the night and checked in to our private four bed room.

It was after 9pm at that point. We really didn't have time to do much besides eat so that's what we did. Chris was dying to try Japanese Italian food this whole trip. He had a coworker back home who recommended it. We had tried twice already to hit the food up but both times the restaurants had closed down early. In this case at least, third time was a charm. I was mostly excited about noodles. The Japanese know their noodles so I figured they could easily pay homage to pasta. And I wasn't disappointed. My noodles were deliciously chewy. We were also just curious about what the differences between American versus Japanese Italian food would be. I had ordered a pasta dish with crab in a red cream sauce. Chris had gotten carbonara- they put egg on top. Different but good. Eric's margherita pizza was normal but Beth's four cheese pizza was entirely something different. There was no red sauce under the cheese and on too they put honey! It was good! But if anything, it was more like a dessert than dinner! We had also ordered a ton of "garlic toast" that ended up being two fresh yummy yeasty baguettes with green stuff on top and served in wooden boats. My guess is the green stuff was some kind of weak pesto. And before any of our ordered food arrived, the waitress brought us what she called, "carrots." It was dish of tan cream with crispy baguette chips to dip in it. Our best guess was it might have been mascarpone cheese and maybe there were carrots blended into it? It didn't taste like carrot. It didn't taste like much actually. So who knows? Eating another country's take on another country's cultural dishes, we've discovered, is always fun. Its never the same and its usually very interesting lol.

After that it was after 11pm already. So we headed back to the hostel to pack and sleep.

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