Japan, Day Nine: Kyoto

Even in Japan, you cannot escape Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

We had another day in Kyoto and had only seen a tiny fraction of the temples so we decided to walk the Philosopher's Path, a 2 km trail that connects two of the city's most famous, Nanzen-ji and Ginkaku-ji.

This was maybe the hottest day yet. Perfect for a nice leisurely stroll outside.

There was a young couple having what I presume were engagement photos taken in the gardens.

This is the gate to the Nanzen-ji grounds. You can pay a few yen to walk up some stairs to the top but man, it was hot. Sitting in the shade sounded nicer.

There's a very old aqueduct behind the temple, with a sign explaining that yes, they've noticed the visible crack but not to worry, engineers have checked it out and they don't think it's going to collapse or anything.

Nothing here warned against pictures so I took a few. Most of traditional Japanese living spaces looked like this, in all the places we visited. We learned they have little alcoves (on the left) for art even in modern Japanese homes today.

The philosopher's path runs along a canal through mostly a residential area. It was a nice walk, with lots of air conditioned shops and cafes along the way. I bought some jewelry and we got some traditional patterned Japanese paper goods in one of the shops - we always do this, buying prints and art on vacation, and then stress ourselves out trying to keep them unruined until we get home. So far we've always been successful - we took some of the paper to the framing shop on Sunday to make a big piece for our living room.

We ran across another cat who didn't care about us.

At the end of the path is a heavily touristed hill up to Ginkaku-ji, the Silver Pavilion.

There seems to be some discussion on why it's called the Silver Pavilion - maybe because it's the second best after the gold one, or maybe because it looked silver in the moonlight, or maybe it used to be partially covered with silver material. It looked the same as all the other ones, though.

At Ginkaku-ji there's a rock garden featuring a depiction of Mt Fuji.

Up, up, up.

This was a beautiful view of Kyoto, the best we'd seen.

We walked down the hill and stopped for ice cream - matcha and black sesame - then took the bus back to Nishiki Market for some shopping.

As an aside, nearly every public toilet across Japan provides some sort of instructions. Here's an example.

I noticed this area inside Nishiki Market which turned out to be an actual temple. Inside a covered pedestrian shopping mall.

We bought another print for the house inside a tiny shop run by an elderly man, and then headed back out to get on the bus again. This girl was waiting there for the bus. She had a lot going on.

For dinner we went to Premium Pound for Kobe beef. Making restaurant reservations in Japan is not easy - I tried to do this online and didn't succeed. I finally found a restaurant concierge service to call who can book it for you but their English was spotty, and when we arrived at the restaurant at the scheduled time it turned out they'd booked us at a different location about twenty minutes away. Fortunately, the guy was really nice and let us stay, and called the other restaurant to let them know about the mix-up.

This is a really small restaurant, maybe 20 seats. All the food was cooked in front of us. You can choose several different multi-course options and of course we went with the best one - the premium Kobe - because, I mean, how often am I going to be in Kyoto at a Kobe beef steakhouse?

Every course was impeccable.

We put on our provided bibs because the couple across the way had done so.

I don't know why, it wasn't a messy meal - but the people next us didn't put theirs on right away, and were promptly instructed to by the server.

This is Kobe "sashimi" with caviar and unagi.

A little salad - this was one of only two salads served to us the entire trip, and the other one was at breakfast in Magome. Not so much of a thing there.

Perfectly seared scallops with truffles.

The beef! Waiting to be cooked.

A dumpling is steaming under this item.

Here it is! With ginger I think.

Gratin course:

And the beef. I was so excited I started eating mine before I remembered to take a picture of the main event. It was so, so good. I'm not really a beef person, but I will vouch for the amazingness of this beef. With little crispy fried garlic slices!

The rice course is always last.

And then dessert - matcha custard, black sesame ice cream, and a little cake with berry jam.

The service and atmosphere in the restaurant were absolutely perfect. The manager even walked with us to the door and came outside to chat a bit before we left.

We walked for a bit to Ponto-cho Alley, lined with bars and restaurants, and intended to go over to Gion to see it at night, but it was starting to rain.

We ended up deciding to call it at night, but then had quite a time figuring out how to get home. We had to take a non-subway train first to connect to the subway, and the first train line was the only one we ever ran across with absolutely no English instructions on the ticket machines. We asked someone some questions and eventually figured it out after much confusion. There was an equally confused American couple also trying to buy tickets at the same time, and on the way home we ended up seeing them two other times wandering around in other stations trying to figure out what to do. FOREIGNERS.

The train, once we managed to find it, had a cool 1970s vibe. Purple velour!