Friday the 7th of Jan…
We got to the historical side of Kyoto with plenty of time to spare last night. The Kiomizudera Temple was particularly stunning in the last light of the day when the lanterns went on outside. After that we wandered slowly down the narrow streets, buying a few souvenirs here and there, then back across the bridge into the main part of town for dinner.
Dinner was at our favourite ‘regular’ spot in Kyoto, a little Izakaya style place, specialising in serving hotpot with a yuzu or japanese lemon flavour. It’s changed a bit since last time, the staff except the head chef seem to all be chinese. The taste was ok but not as delicious as we had remembered. The photos attached give you a sense of the atmosphere!
Today we got up early and decided to avoid the main temples and went to a small but very pretty little garden that had been originally planned out in around 900 ad, then reconstructed by Tokugawa Iemitsu in the 1600s, burnt down again around 1860 then reconstructed once more during the early time of the Meiji Emperor. It’s a very nice garden and at that time of day it was very peaceful. We finished off the morning with a cup of coffee at starbucks and headed for Osaka!
Our friend Melissa from Wellington was waiting for us at a little station just beyond the main Osaka station. Our first stop was to eat! It’s an Osaka tradition to eat lots of street food until it kills you. Sadly we haven’t had time to eat so much it kills us, but we have had a gray day wandering around, even if it is almost freezing! Osaka is like a crazy version of Vegas, neon lights and funny statue like signs everywhere. Lots of old buildings with old broken down roller-coasters and ferris wheels sticking out of them. We wandered along broad main streets then hit the shopping district of crowded brightly lit avenues. Crossed over the main river a few times, it’s a dark looking thing that barely appears to move, but if the local baseball team wins then people (usually drunk) jump off the bridge to celebrate. I hope they don’t win too often or the next big world viral flu outbreak might start in Osaka!
Although we didn’t manage Kuidaore, the Osakan tradition of eating ones self into a heavenly stupor near death, we did get a good lunch of deep fried things on sticks dipped once into a communal pot of ‘source’ (nobody had the heart to tell them they had picked the wrong word…) And then an evening snack of Takoyaki, fried octopus dumplings, a local speciality of deliciousness, best served scalding hot by a street vendor.
After some more market street shopping Naoko and I had to choose between a ¥3,000 cab ride or a mad dash to catch a subway for a total of ¥540. The subway proved to be the right choice but we literally only just made it to the Shinkansen. Now we are on our way to Hiroshima. It will be my first time to the once flattened city. Hope to share more pictures soon.
In the mean time lets see if I can make my new portable wifi router connect while on the train. If I can you’ll know soon enough!
Looks like it will work but at 250 miles an hour or more who knows when we are going to go through a tunnel. Need a wide open space to get signal!
