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Published: August 8th 2013
1001 buddhas
Pretty fascinating to see firsthandThis morning we had to get up early to visit the world famous Tokyo fish market. In case you are not familiar, the fish auction is world famous, and the auction portion can be exciting as the various buyers compete for the ultimate fish. Last year a tuna sold for a million bucks!
Unfortunately, though, we couldn't get into the auction. So instead we wandered around checking out the fishmongers until it was time for our sushi breakfast. To the people working the market, we must have looked like a herd of slow-moving American Buffalo stopping to gaze in wonder at everything we saw like we had never seen it before. "Ohhh, LOOK!! A fish! A fiiiissshhhhhhhhh!!" The average looks we received ranged form mild contempt to casual annoyance to friendly when the seller thought he had a potential sale going. Disappointment immediately followed when he realized there was no sales, only photo opps. Another note: you have to be careful wandering between the fish market stalls. There are about a million people zooming around on scooters loaded with fish and if you aren't careful they will run you down.
After the fish market we hopped on the bus, took a visual tour
Salted fish
Mmmm, want a bite? You know you do! of parts of Tokyo and the Imperial Palace and were dropped off at the train station to catch the Shinkansen super express train to Kyoto. Man, do the Japanese know how to build a train. The thing is so smooth you hardly know when it's pulling out of the train station and hardly feel it when you are doing over 150 MPH.
Kyoto has the hottest weather so far. We ran from the train to the bus, which thankfully was air conditioned, and immediately headed to Sanjusangendo Temple. It houses 1001 Buddha statues. It was pretty amazing to see. I am including a photo below of it. It's not a photo I took, I got it from the internet. The temple doesn't allow photos and has signs clearly posted that say if they catch you taking photos they will take your camera. I thought about sneaking a few quick shots, but the temperature inside (no A/C) sucked out my will to be disobedient.
Headed into the hills to Kibune for something called "Kibune Kawadoko" - which is dining on the river. Literally, ON the river. They have build platforms over the river you sit on and eat. It was an 8 course
Fish heads, Fish heads...
rolly polly fish heads, eat them up, yum! meal (all small courses) of traditional Japanese food. One was a whole salted fish. I told myself I didn't come to Japan to not try everything at least once and ate the whole thing. The last piece I ate was the head. It was a bit difficult to eat. It was staring at me and I could almost hear it saying "I had a dream, I could've been somebody! And now you are eating my head!" It was mainly difficult to eat because I didn't really want to eat the head, but down the hatch it went and I am still here to talk about it. The best thing about this restaurant is that it was all outdoors and the temperature was cool and pleasant. Afterwards we walked to the Shinto shrine nearby and then headed back.
After checking into our hotel, we all freshened up and went to Itoh Dining for some Kobe Beef. I have never had REAL kobe beef until tonight. How did I like it? Did it live up to the expectation? Let's just say it was like there was a party in my mouth. I've never tasted any meat so good. I left the restaurant with
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Yukata, Furisode, and Kimono
Good pictures. Btw women in traditional dress here is wearing Yukata, light casual Summer garment, not a Furisode worn on formal celebrations especially coming of age. A standard and formal Kimono would be too hot to wear in Summer. Japanese tourists wear the casual Yukata rented at hotels for fun and discovering cultural roots.