Last Two Days

And then we were two.

For Sunday and Monday, Andrea and I took in some more of the sights of Kyoto.  On Sunday we went to the National Museum in Kyoto and saw the permanent exhibits, mostly of ceramics, textiles, religious statues, etc.  There was a special exhibit for the Treasures of Kodan-ji Temple.  When we arrived there, though, the estimated wait to get in was 2 hours.  We passed, as we saw the line queued up with people waiting patiently to get in.

It was interesting to see in the museum that there appeared (at least as near as I could tell) to be a wide variety of people attending.  It seemed to me they were of all ages, classes, etc.  Some folks, at least judging solely from their looks (which I realize is unfair), you would never have guessed for museum goers.  Andrea tells me that she thinks it is much more common for all people in the country to care about their national treasures.

Our new ryokan was nice.  A little more modern than the Yuzuya, and much larger.  The baths were larger too and they had a terrific outdoor bath (rotemburo).

I am going to have to finish this up when I arrive back in the states.

Saturday

Saturday was Mark and Lisa's last in Kyoto.  They had been very eager to take a trip to Hiroshima, so that's what they did  Andrea and I took the opportunity to visit Himeji, the site of a significant castle and garden.

We blasted off from the Yuzuya in separate cabs on Saturday mid morning.  Andrea and I were headed for our next ryokan (the Kaden) and Mark and Lisa went to the station for the train to Hiroshima.  After we left our bags at the hotel, we too headed for the station.  When we got there, w were told that the next express train would actually make it to Himeji before the next Shinkansen would.  So we took it.  90 minutes later we were in Himeji,  We took the tourist bus around the castle to a garden we were interested in - KoKuen Garden.  Shortly after we got in, Andrea went to begin photographing and discovered that the SD card on the camera was filled, and we did not have an extra.  Ouch!  Andrea was prepared to take picture with her Japanese mobile phone.  I thought that there had to be a store relatively close by that would have SD cards.  Fortunately Andrea had the language skills to be able to ask, and we were directed to a place that was about a 7 minute walk from the garden. When we got there, we thought that the fact the place sold washing machines and other large appliances boded ill for the solution.   Fortunately, they had SD cards and we bought a couple.  We were back in the garden shortly and able now to shoot to our heart's content (which Andrea certainly did).

Himeji Castle.

Pond in the garden (which was full of huge carp)..

Turns out I was in fact on the trip.

Beautiful fall colors.

Of course, seeing the gardens was nothing compared to Mark and Lisa seeing the Emperor and Empress in Kyoto Station, as they waited for their train.  If Mark send me the picture, I will post it here.

Andrea and Keith took the Shinkansen back from Himeji,  The trip that took 90 minutes on an express train took 45 minutes on the Shinkansen.  The Shinkansen was also 2 and 1/2 times more expensive, proving he adage that time is money.  

On our way back to the train station in Himeji, we saw an outdoor gathering and heard the sounds of singing.  We got up closer an saw that it was an Elvis impersonator performing on an outdoor stage to a group of a couple of hundred.  He was really good and it was a hoot to see it.

We met Mark and Lisa at the station after their day in Hiroshima, and it was off to a delicious sushi dinner for our last dinner together in Japan.  At least on this trip! 

Shopping, food and an occasional garden

Thursday the boys and girls split up.  Andrea and Lisa went out shopping, while Mark and Keith headed down towards Kyoto Station, bagging a temple on the way, making a stop at the temple of electronics (our favorite store - Yodobashi) and going up Kyoto Tower to get a glimpse of the city and environs.  I don't think I have any pictures from the top, but I highly recommend a visit to the tower when you go to Kyoto.  The views are 360 degrees, and you get a sense of the surrounding mountains.  You can also see over to Osaka and get a sense of how close you are to that city.  It was good.

That evening we ate at a little hole in the wall izakaya that Lisa and Andrea had "discovered" earlier in the day.  The Mamoriya.  We got in and there were a table full of men in suits polishing off a fair quantity of beer and sake and having a great time.  The proprietor was delighted to see us, surprised that Lisa and Andrea had made good on their promise to come back.  And he didn't disappoint.  A variety of small dishes, several involving oysters, were consumed that evening, along with a couple of flights of sake.  It was all good, and we got out of there for an incredibly reasonable price.

On Friday, we changed up teams and Lisa and Mark did some major league gift buying, while Andrea and I tooled around the city and ended up going to Daikakuji, a temple up in the Arashiyama District.  There were beautiful gardens and a wild chrysanthemum exhibit.  As Andrea whipped out one of the new cameras she has acquired on the trip to memorialize the event, she realized that the battery was dead.  Ouch.  Undeterred, she whipped out her Japanese mobile phone and used it to take pictures for the event.  I have not been able to get copies of those, but will do so at some point and ad them to the blog.  The gardens were pretty and the Arashiyama area is quite nice.

That evening it was off to a special gyoza place for dinner.  Again this is one where it appeared only to be locals, as we clearly were the only Westerners there.  We tried a variety of different types of gyoza, including one that was yuzu (citrus) flavored.  Very oishii.

I will next try to put together a post of Saturday's adventures on Lisa and Mark's last day in Kyoto.

Japanese Breakfasts

It would be difficult to do descriptive justice to the breakfasts we have had at the Yuzuya Ryokan.  They really have been marvelous, both visually and gastronomically.  It centers around pickles and bite-sized pieces of steamed vegetables and tofu and rice and grilled fish and egg (think tamago sushi, not Western omelet).  Here are some photos from our breakfasts at the Yuzuya:

A variety of pickled vegetables and rice.  Not shown are the grilled fish and egg portions of the meal.

An assortment of pickled things to add to the rice.  The ever present rice.

The above is sort of the whole enchilada, or something like that.

Kyoto Observations

So much for "regular" posts.  Two days have gone by and I haven't turned to the blog.  And this afternoon, I wrote a long post, only to have it mysteriously disappear by an electronic gremlin on my notebook.  Ouch.

In any event, a few things.  The weather has been great.  We haven't had any rain to speak of (only at nights) and the days have been clear and pleasant.  So that's a good thing.

Tuesday we bagged a couple of Kyoto "top ten" sights.  After an absolutely fabulous Japanese breakfast at our ryokan, we took a relatively leisurely walk across the city to Nijo-Jo Castle.  I say relatively leisurely because there were very few pottery or other type of craft shops that Andrea didn't walk into and review the display.  But we are on vacation, after all, and it is certainly a way to see the city.

Nijo-jo Castle was the place where the shoguns stayed when they came to Kyoto to visit the Emperor, whose residence was not far away here.  There is an inner castle and and an outer castle, both of which are surrounded by moats.  Impressive and imposing buildings from the outside, they are very simple on the inside.  If we can get some photos downloaded from the camera, I will try to post a shot or two we took here.



The day was getting on, and four type A people were not to be content with having bagged only one attraction on the day.  So we took a cab up to Kinkakuji, the "Golden Pavilion."  Good call.  It was gorgeous.

The "Golden Pavilion" is in a beautiful setting, and the fall colors enhanced that beauty.

We topped off the day with a delicious kaiseki meal at our ryokan.  We elected to have only one dinner at the ryokan during our stay, and we were all glad that we did.  The dining area is classic ryokan, looking out into a little garden-like area.  It is small, with only about 6 or 7 tables.  Delicious food, course after course, presented and served in exquisitely beautiful fashion.

Wednesday was a day of temples, as we walked around the Hagashiyama area where we are staying.  We visited Kodaiji Temple and Kiyomizu Temple, walking along some beautiful streets in the area.  Along the way, we saw quite a number of maiko, who are apprentice geisha dressed in the traditional garb - kimono, big obi, white face paint.  It seemed odd to see so many.  Turns out that we saw a shop that will dress you up like a maiko and this was no doubt what happened.   A number of them were too eager to pose for pictures with tourists, and a couple even smiled and showed lipstick on their teeth.  No self-respecting maiko would have lipstick on her teeth!

We thought these two were legit.

These three were definitely not!

To Kyoto

We left Tokyo on Sunday morning on our way to Kyoto, with a detour first to an onsen in the northwest part of the city up in the mountains.  It was raining.

After a speedy 2+ hour ride on the shinkansen, we arrived in Kyoto Station.  It was packed on a Sunday at noon.  We had hoped to have a leisurely lunch at the station before taking our next train up to the onsen, but our plans changed.  After seeing huge lines at all of the restaurants on the 10th floor of the department store attached to the station (it is customary in Japan for the large department stores in Japan to have a floor of restaurants on one of the upper floors - but I digress), we called an audible and headed for the basement, which is a grocery store and prepared food section.  We bought a bunch of prepared foods to eat on the train. It worked out OK and we took a 25 minute train ride to Kameoka, where the microbus from the onsen was waiting to pick us up.

An onsen is a hot spring, where there are various resort hotels.  The focus in on the baths:  there are large bathing areas (single sex) where there are indoor baths, outdoor baths, steam rooms, etc.  The Japanese bath is quite a ritual involving cleaning and soaking.  The temperature of the baths is pretty hot - about 40 degrees C, or 104 F.  It is very relaxing.

So we had our baths and then it was dinner time.  Did I say the focus is on the baths.  Well, it in also about the eating as well.  We sat down to a multi-course kaiseki meal in the traditional Japanese style, with various courses like the vinegared course, the grilled fish course, the rice course, etc.  It was Mark and Lisa's first such experience and we all enjoyed it.  With sake as well.

Spa services are also a part of the deal.  Andrea and I had massages before dinner, Mark and Lisa afterwards.  If you are reading this Brenda they did not compare to yours, but they were good!

Monday morning came and it was clear skies.  Hallelujah.  We got dropped at  train station from which a scenic, narrow gauge train rides through the mountains down to Arashiyama on the western outskirts of Kyoto.  It is like being in New Hampshire except no one looks like you do our speaks English.  But we actually met a retired engineer who chatted us up at the station.  He loved practicing his English.  He was by himself, but with a tour group who had come up to see the leaves.  He was from Nagoya and had retired some years ago from Misubishi Motors, during which tenure he did some stints in NY.  Mark liked practicing his Japanese on Mr Nagasaki-san.

The train ride was pretty - as I said like the leaf trains in New Hampshire.  We arrived in Arashiyama and visited Tenryuji Temple, a beautiful complex that is a World Heritage site.  I will post some pictures at some point, but the gardens are beautiful.

Note that selfies are very popular in Japan as well!


We checked into our ryokan late in the afternoon.  It is tucked away in a busy part of Gion Corner in Kyoto, but you would never know it.  Very quiet and peaceful.  And small - only about 8 rooms.  We had dinner out at an izakaya restaurant close by where they served small plates and drinks.  A great assortment of various things that were very tasty.  And then Monday was over.

I have had difficulty with my Wifi access device, but the ryokan has Wifi so I can now get on a more regular posting schedule.  And we have the cameras up and running so I'll try to post some pictures.

Arrival

We arrived on Friday night at around 8:30.  Had lunch with Michael in NY on Thursday before heading out to JFK for the flight.  Things did not start out auspiciously.  When we got to the ticket counter, we were told that the aircraft had been changed due to maintenance.  Although the ultimate accommodations were all right, one of the reasons to fly out of JFK is that they fly newer and better planes on that route.  Well not on Thursday night they didn't.  But no big deal.  A bigger deal was Andrea going through security and being told that the scanner registered something in (their words) her "nether region."  She was required to have a pat down search, which would have been ok but the one person TSA had for that terminal was out that day.  The supervisor called to have someone come from another terminal to do the pat down.  We waited and waited.  It was mildly infuriating and neither of us had any confidence that anyone would arrive.  Finally after 25 minutes a woman arrived and performed the requisite search.  We were on our way.

Fortunately our experience at the Tokyo could not have been better.  We arrived 30 minutes early, we were able to pick up Andrea's cell phone right as that desk was closing and there was an immediate bus to our hotel.

Saturday morning we took a bus into Tokyo, and met our friends Mark and Lisa at our hotel at about 8 o'clock.  We headed directly to the fish market at Tsukiji where we enjoyed a great breakfast of raw fish, miso soup and rice at a 10-seater hole in the wall that probably serves about the freshest fishyou could expect to find.  Spent time wandering around th largest commercial fish market in the world, seeing species of fish for sale that none of us knew even existed.  Then it was off to the electronics district of Akihabara to help re-inflate the Japanese economy.  Several hours, 4 cameras and several other electronics' devices later, we headed back to our hotel.  The store we visited (Yodobashi) was incredible - 8 floors full of all sorts of consumer electronics with a Ginza-like feeling of energy and excitement.

A quiet dinner not far from our hotel (specializing in grilled eel) and we were ready for bed.  Mark and I had drink on Japanese whisky in the hotel bar, which had a little bit of a Bill Murray, Lost in Translation feel to it peering out as it does from the 27th floor of a high rise above Tokyo Station.

Today it is off to Kyoto for a night at an onsen (hot spring) north of the city.  Should be wonderful, with the only dark cloud being a pretty substantial chance of rain.  Will travel by Shinkansen, which s always a pleasure.