Day 13 5/4/06- Japan

Kyoto

Highlight

• Shugaku-in Imperial Villa, overlooking a hill in Northern Kyoto. The view was spectacular and you can really appreciate Japanese gardens. We went on a Japanese speaking tour, with lots of senior Japanese citizens, as this was the only way you can visit the castle.
• Got the 2-day sightseeing pass (2000), and have been really impressed with the Kyoto subway. The side of the platforms are actually walled in, with doors that open when the train comes.
• Kyoto Traditional Craft Museum - decided to do that since it was raining and we were getting a bit sick of shrines and temples, which can be found at nearly every street corner and shopping centres near you. I had no idea how time-consuming it is to produce some of the famous Japanese crafts around. It makes you appreciates the beauty of it even more.
• Heian jingu Shrine. A very red shrine. I have no idea what the significance of this is, but hey it looked nice!
• There are loads of blooming cherry blossoms in Kyoto, especially around the Gion district. The ones along the bank of the rivers are especially beautiful.
• Chasing geisha around the Gion district. This place was full of tourists. We spent ages walking around and only managed to see this fake one - her face wasn't even white and her hair wasn't done up nicely, and she was ugly!!!, but she did have an assistant and was wearing a kimono. Later on, when we were walking the shopping st, we saw two real ones, on opposite sides of the streets crossing the roads, but didn't have time to take pictures of them.
• Finding a shop with loads and loads of free tasting on the famous Kyoto triangle sweets. We felt too guilty afterwards and bought some.
• Shabu-yaki, kinda like Chinese steam boat really, but we did get to sit on the floor and take off our shoes. It was great to take your shoes off and eat. See food section below.

Food

• Another red bean bun from Fresco (hey I couldn't read the writing!) (74)
• Bun with milk coating
• Bun with egg, ham and curry
• Soybean Porky (100)
• Green tea chocolate cube (105)
• Black sesame rice cracker
• Assorted dried seafood
• Green tea paste cake
• Taste test of triangles, mochi, pickles, cakes... they display it, we tasted it.
• Shabu-yaki, a half pot of shabu-shabu (boiling water with seaweed flavouring) and sukiyaki (shallow pool of BBQ sauce), you are given beef (we ordered the "domestic" beef, it was very fatty but tasty, of course), vegetables, udon and mochi to cook however you like. They had a very nice sesame/peanut sauce and a miso/soy sauce as dipping. It was very expensive (2800 per person) but a good experience. We were going to go for the All-you-can eat option - 2 hrs for 3980 yen but decided that stuffing yourself with meat is prob not a good Japan eating experience... will save that one for Italy or Canada :)