Cafe du Monde

Today we ate at a small cafe upstairs in Kyoto Station called Cafe du Monde.  I had an egg sandwhich and a peach iced tea.  The tea was surprisingly flavorful.  The peach taste was fresh and lively, not like bottled peach iced tea in the States.  After breakfast it was time to meet an old friend, George.  George and I went to college together and came to Japan together for a summer program in Nagoya.  He has been in Japan for most of the time since then, teaching english.  Now he has just taken the highest level of Japanese proficiency test and plans to apply for jobs at Japanese companies doing translation.  Someday he’d like to work for a video game company like Capcom.

With George we headed out to see two very important places in Kyoto- Ryo-Anji and Kinkakuji.

Except we got lost first… well a little bit.  No matter, I was glad to see some daily life of local residents as we floundered with the bus sytem.

Eventually, we made it.  George asked for directions several times.  That seems to be the way to go in Japan- you ask for help.  I wish we would learn to do so in the US.  Kinkakuji is a golden temple or pavilion on the northwest side of Kyoto.  The grounds are breathtaking.  The structure is covered in gold leaf and sits on lotus-covered water.  The gold color of the temple seems to infuse everything on the expansive grounds of the site with a warm glow.

First, some views of the temple itself.

Kinkakuji

As I said, the gold glow seems to infect everything around the temple.  Here’s a look at the grounds.

Kinkakuji Grounds

The last shot above is a place to throw yen coins into a small bowl for luck.  Looks like a lot of misses.

After visiting Kinkakuji, we proceeded to Ryo-Anji.  Ryo-Anji is also an impressive structure, but it’s most famous for its rock zen garden.  I unfortunately don’t have a picture of it.  It was crowded, and partially under the all-too-common “maintenance” in some areas.  This was a shame, because I remember Ryo-Anji being extremely peaceful and wonderful to visit in 2002.  It still was, but it was just too crowded to get a decent shot of the garden.  This temple is mostly explored from indoors/partially indoors and affords some extremely beatiful views of the mossy and natural grounds.  I love the moss that grows on the forest floor at Ryo-Anji.

Exploring Ryo-Anji

After exploring all of this, we decided to head to Kyoto’s downtown shopping district Shijo.  Our goals were simple- get some food and play video games.  Japan has really awesome arcades (referred to as “game centers”).  We headed to Takashimaya (a big department store).  The top floors of these huge department store buildings in Japan always have restaurants.  We found a family restaurant.  I ate my standard – katsu donburi (pork cutlet with rice, egg, onion).

Then it was time to hit the arcades and look around the shopping areas a bit.

Arcade Namco Wonder Tower

Play Street Fighter 4 in Japan… check!

Obsessed With Cute

If you said Japan is obsessed with cute, you wouldn’t be too far off.  At least in the cities.  The cuties in a prize game above are one example of many thousands of cute characters we saw as prizes, toys etc available everywhere.

Yes, This is Mario Kart in an Arcade

Exploring Shijo

After all of this we were ready to get some rest at the hotel, which we did, and get some dinner.  We browsed some local places:

The Usual Display

Restaurants in Japan, especially the more casual ones, almost always have displays of fake food outside in a window.  This is especially handy for tourists, it lets you see the possibilities without any language skills or even entering the shop.  As you can see not only food but even drinks are often displayed.  The displays are very detailed and almost look 100% real.

We ultimately decided to try a Chinese restaurant we spotted.  Chinese food is quite different in Japan (and Asia in general) from “Americanized” Chinese food.  We ordered some spring rolls, some sort of beef balls (with extra crunchy cartlidge pieces inside, we found out), gyoza, soup and some other odds and ends which we all shared.  My wife’s ethnicy is Taiwanese so a lot of the menu was familiar.

Chinese Dinner

The place had a lot of character.  Yeah, a lot of shops, buildings and businesses in Japan have “character.”  There is a lot of variety wherever you go.

After dinner George and I went out for a drink and reminisced about old times.

George

Afterward, it was a good chance to explore Kyoto at night.  Some of the “character” I mentioned:

Kyoto by Night

The girls went on a konbiini run (convienience store run) and got snacks and drinks for the hotel room.  Convienience stores and vending machines in Japan are awesome.  More on that later.

Tags: Japan, kyoto

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