Rainy day in Kyoto

Well, I awoke to heavy, pouring rain on Tuesday…I was so lucky to have a clear, blue sky the previous day since it’s the rainy season in Kyoto! But I was secretly relieved, since the rain meant I could allow myself to have a more leisurely day, and I used the rain as an excuse to take my time getting ready. While I was lounging about the hostel, I met one of the guys also staying in my room. Turns out he was also from Southern California, and had come to Japan on a whim since his brother worked for an airline. He just showed up at the airport and got the first available standby ticket to somewhere cool!

Nishiki Market

It was his first day in Kyoto, so we decided to join forces and see some sights together. We started at the big food market in the middle of Kyoto because my guidebook made it sound really cool (but it was also protected from the rain!). We walked the few blocks there and started on one end of the covered shopping promenade. There was so much crazy food! Again, lots of fish, but also stores with every variety of pickled vegetable you could imagine! There were stores with huge displays of just dried foods…some of which I identified as the tiny dried fish I didn’t exactly love over my white rice the night before.

Octopus pops with a quail egg stuffed in the head, dried fish, pickled
everything, and baked good!

There were candy stores with all sorts of adorable, decorative confections, bakeries, and produce stores. I was tempted by a stall serving marinated, freshly grilled eel skewers. Yes, eel for breakfast. My sight-seeing buddy, Alan, was only mildly appalled. As the man grilled my eel, he handed me a shot glass-sized paper cup full of what he described “eel broth,” which was a bit salty, but overall just tasted like broth. When it was ready, I stood in front of the grill and ate my skewer of eel. It was pretty tasty! It’s a lightly flavored fish, and was made a little sweet from the sauce it was grilled in. Alan refused to eat fish for breakfast, so we stopped at one of the bakeries and both got some biscuits on our way out of the market.

The Silver Pavilion

The rain had lightened, so we decided to attempt to go see the temple named Ginkakuji, or the Silver Pavilion. We opted to use the bus system since our hostel recommended it over the trains, and finally figured out where the stop we wanted was and hopped on a bus. Well, it wasn’t exactly speedy (it stopped at what felt like every block!), but we made it to Ginkakuji. The bus ended up being a lot cheaper than the trains (it was only 500 yen (about $5 for an all day pass, where each train ride costs about $2), and we had a bus map that showed the whole city, all the cool spots to see, and the buses that would take you there.

When we got out of the bus, it started pouring again, and we took refuge in the doorway of a store along the way. We were ushered in by the shopkeeper and discovered that it was a honey store. The woman running the store offered us samples of bunches of different honeys and honey flavored drinks. They were all delicious, but we were reluctant to buy any in case we couldn’t actually import them into the US. After a few minutes, she cheerfully announced what I can only assume was “Oh look, the rain has stopped!” and shooed us from her store :)

We made it to the temple, paid our entrance fee (which made me very grateful that Masa had paid for EVERYTHING yesterday – the admissions add up very quickly!), and entered the complex. It was lightly raining, but everything was so green and peaceful! The “Silver” Pavilion is actually made of wood, and the dark wood buildings were surrounded with bright white rock and sand gardens. We walked through the buildings and then uphill to an overlook of the temple grounds.

We spent a while ambling through the gardens, and it was pretty in the rain, but I was approaching temple overload. We got back on the bus and decided to stop off at the Golden Pavilion because Alan hadn’t seen it yet. After another bus ride, we hopped off at the next temple, and I since I had already seen it I hung out in the outer gardens while Alan went in to explore.

When he had gotten his fill of the shiny temple, we headed to see the castle in the middle of the city.  On our way to the bus stop, we stopped at a little noodle shop and had a bowl of soup for lunch. There were the typical plastic displays of food outside the restaurant, but when we walked inside there were no menus, and we both had to walk the waitress back out into the rain to point at the bowls of noodles we wanted to order, haha. The soup was good, and it was nice to have a completely cooked, fish-free meal!

We made our way to the center of the city and found the perimeter of the Nijo castle pretty easily after getting out of yet another bus, but were on the exact opposite corner as the entrance, and had to walk all the way around the castle wall to get in…only to get there and realize the castle is CLOSED on Tuesdays :(

We were kind of bummed, but realized we had just enough time to go see one more thing before everything started to shut down for the day. I had really enjoyed the bamboo forest the day before, so we headed back to Arashiyama to go see it. I hadn’t really gotten to spend that much time there, so I was more than happy to go back since it was also cooler and later in the day, and I was hoping there would be smaller crowds this time. I was right, and after the longest bus ride of the day, we were rewarded with a beautiful, long walk through the almost completely deserted bamboo forest!

The views of the river on the edge of the forest were awesome, and steamy mist was rolling through the small valleys after the afternoon rain cleared. We both enjoyed the stroll, but were tired and headed back towards the hostel on the direct train. We hung out at the hostel bar, checked e-mail, relaxed and grabbed a beer before heading out to find dinner.

We searched for an affordable restaurant for a while, and realized we were definitely in a fancier area of town! We saw a food court advertised at the top of one of the malls, and took the elevator up to the restaurants. We got out of the elevator and realized it was just one restaurant and that it didn’t have an English or picture menu. But after a brief chat with one of the waiters, we were assured we could order some chicken “yakatori” (skewers of teriyaki chicken), and agreed to stay.

Funny dog

After some confusion with the menu, we ordered 2 beers and 12 “chickens” and hoped for the best! We were pleasantly surprised by 12 small skewers of delicious grilled chicken, and enjoyed the meal. Afterwards, we tried to get dessert at “Sweets Paradise” one floor down, but were turned away because they were closing. On the way back to the hostel we stumbled upon another dessert place, and grabbed some ice cream covered waffles.

After dessert we had a drink at the Irish pub next to the hostel, but we were both tired and soon headed home. It was a fun day, and I was glad I didn’t let the rain ruin what turned out to be a full day of seeing the sights