{"id":2343,"date":"2019-05-14T12:15:46","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T17:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/?p=2343"},"modified":"2019-05-14T12:15:47","modified_gmt":"2019-05-14T17:15:47","slug":"kyoto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/?p=2343","title":{"rendered":"Kyoto"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With the benefit of hindsight we should have spent about 4\ndays in Kyoto, made a day trip to Hiroshima and perhaps included a two day\nvisit to Osaka which which  was missing\nfrom our itinerary. As it worked out the itinerary we made in the US resulted\nin us spending only two days in Kyota which was \nreally not sufficient to do justice to this magnificent city with its\nold world charm and lots to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway we arrived here from Hiroshima on an unreserved train which involved changing at Osaka. We left booking a reserved seat until too late and by the time we tried reserved seats were fully booked because it was the end of Golden Week in Japan and there were a lot of people returning from their holidays \u2013 Golden Week is a major annual event in Japan made even more significant this year because it coincided with the abdication of the reigning emperor \u2013 the first abdication in over 200 years \u2013 and the coronation of his son the following day! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Typical Japan Railways carriage – clean & comfortable

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However, as it turned out getting on one of the five unreserved carriages  was not a big deal \u2013 it was crowded but we did get seat. However, we arrived at Kyoto uneventfully and proceeded to our hotel \u2013 one within the Nest chain which is prominent in Japan – Hotel Kyoto Shijokarasuma<\/em>. It was a nice hotel and the staff were polite and helpful. The room was small but with twin beds and the space was efficiently used. It amazes me that the Japanese are able to squeeze in as much as they do into very limited space. The room pretty much has everything one can want \u2013 beds, a small desk, an attached bath with a full tub and shower, a fridge, TV, etc \u2013 and they squeeze that all in within a total of less than 180 sq ft. As always, the room is spotless and one is provided with all the amenities one could want including a tooth brush and paste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Typical compact bedroom and<\/em><\/strong>
attached bathroom<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Mini was very tired and bothered by allergies and she went to\nsleep for a couple of hours. I went to deal with the problem that I had in\nHiroshima as well \u2013 namely the plug points were two pin and my laptop has three\npins so I needed an adapter. I walked the best part of a couple of miles to an\nelectronic store and bought the necessary adapter. Unlike the hotel in\nHiroshima, the one here did not have a spare one that they could provide me\nbecause they had already been taken so I figured I\u2019d just buy one!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The evening of our arrival we went to the Gion district \u2013\nthis is the area where one can see geishas and we were keen to see them but for\nwhatever reason we did not see any \u2013 and we found out later from someone else\nvisiting that they had no luck either. But we proceeded from Gion to a close by\narea which had a mix of very high end stores plus the more moderately priced\nones. The entire area was bustling with people \u2013 many were locals \u2013 and they\nwere a young group who were clearly there to have a good time \u2013 one saw very\nfew older people and hardly any who were middle-aged. It was just a young group\nin their twenties for the most part. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our goal was to head to this restaurant which was reputed to serve quality tonkatsu <\/em>which is part of the Japanese cuisine that we had been told we should try. We had some difficulty finding the restaurant but the food was outstanding.I ordered pork and Mini ordered chicken \u2013 it is breaded and fried and served with unlimited amount rice, miso soup and shredded uncooked cabbage! The portions served were generous and neither of us needed any second helping \u2013 but we noticed that a number of the younger diners surrounding us were gorging themselves on second and third helpings \u2026\u2026.. and despite that they were almost rail thin! Genes I guess!! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pork Tonkatsu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The next morning we went for breakfast to a place called\n\u201cHappy Pancakes\u201d known for its Japanese style pancakes which are very fluffy\nand light. They were tasty and a nice change from the typical breakfast fare \u2013\nnot served with maple syrup as they do in the US \u2013 but with other choices. Mini\nchose fruits and I chose a plain omelet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fluffy Japanese Pancakes

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Then we embarked on our major bit of sightseeing which\nincluded the Fushimi Inari shrine \u2013 which is one of the major attractions of\nKyoto. The problem is that to see the shrine one has to ascend a fairly steep\nclimb and it would take the best part of three hours to go there and back \u2013\nboth a time constraint as well as something that requires a lot of stamina. I\ncould possibly have done it but there was no way that Mini could have done so\nwith her knee issues, etc. So we examined the surroundings which had its own\ncharm and then left \u2013 spending about an hour in the location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Entrance to te site of Fushimi Inari shrine <\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Make wishes\/prayers by writing on these “plaques”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mini pulling on the cord as part of worship <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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From there we went to the Arashiyama bamboo forest which is also highly rate. It involves acres and acres of bamboo trees. Certainly a peaceful area to walk and there were hundreds of tourists walking there but for us \u2013 although it is described as a major tourist attraction \u2013 it was a bit of an anti-climax. Perhaps it is because we had seen bamboo forests in China near the natural panda preserve around Chengdu or the beautiful surroundings of Kerala. There was a few couples wearing kimonos, etc and with their permission, I took a couple of pictures of them with Mini.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\n\nWe spent about an hour here and decided to head out to the next location which was another major tourist draw \u2013 a Buddhist temple called Kinkaku-ji.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kinkaku-ji was well worth visiting. It is a beautiful temple in a spectacular setting offering many opportunities for picture taking. No surprise that it is considered to be one of the highlights of any visit to Kyoto. The image of the temple richly adorned in gold leaf reflects beautifully in the water of Kyokochi, the mirror pond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It is perhaps the most widely-recognized tourist attraction of Kyoto. Seen reflected in the adjoining “mirror pond” with its small islands of rock and pine, Kinkaku-ji Temple, “The Golden Pavilion,” is worth seeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The building’s first purpose was to serve the retiring Shogun\nAshikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1409) as a residence. The gold-leaf-adorned building\nwas converted into a Zen temple shortly after his death. A 21-year-old monk\nburned Kinkaku-ji Temple down in 1950. The temple was rebuilt in 1955 and\ncontinues to function as a storehouse of sacred relics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Golden Pavilion<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

There are other worthwhile sights in Kyoto but we could not\nhandle more than these three given the time we wanted to spend at each location\nand the time needed using public transportation plus walking to reach each\ndestination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Returning from the Golden Pavilion we encountered our first\nand only episode of bad weather \u2013 it started raining and we got a bit drenched\nsince we did not have an umbrella. But it was short lived and not a big deal\nwithin the scheme of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We rested for a while in the hotel and then went on to have dinner at this restaurant that we found on Yelp which had excellent reviews. It was one of the best meals we had in Japan \u2013 and certainly the spiciest by far. We went there around 9:30 pm \u2013 the restaurant closes at 10 \u2013 and we were seated at the counter which appeared to be the primary seating area in the restaurant.  Based on the Yelp reviews we placed our orders \u2013 one was a saut\u00e9ed chicken dish, the other was Dan Dan noodles and the third was for dumplings. The first two were identified as being spicy on the menu and as we placed the order, the server actually advised us that it was spicy. We said that was fine because we figured that \u201cspicy\u201d by Japanese standards  was  a relative term. We could not have been more wrong \u2013 it was spicy beyond belief. The chef was cooking right in front of us and Mini was shocked at the amount of chilly peppers that was added during the cooking of the saut\u00e9ed chicken which is what she ordered. I ordered the Dan Dan noodles and that was out of control spicy \u2013 probably one of the most spicy dishes I have every eaten. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The top of the broth in which the noodles were immersed was literally swimming in chilly flakes of some sort. Mini told me not to eat it but to order something else but I decided to give it a shot and focused on the noodles as opposed to the broth \u2013 it made it tolerable but still extremely spicy to a point where I began sweating profusely. The only thing that was not spicy was the dumplings \u2013 but between us we finished most of the food. It was amazingly tasty despite the spiciness.  I used to complain that Japanese food was bland \u2013 you will not hear that from me again! The chef and the server were clearly amused by my sweating and were whispering to each other in Japanese \u2013 probably telling each other that this Indian guy let himself in for it and is going to have to pay for the consequences the following morning! I\u2019d occasionally give them a thumbs up to say that it was tasty and that I had no regrets!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following day \u2013 in the early afternoon \u2013 was our train\nfrom Kyoto back to Tokyo. We took it easy in the morning. Had lunch at a French\nrestaurant nearby \u2013 actually ended up eating a hamburger that was actually\npretty good. Stopped off at a nearby Starbucks and had coffee there and then\nwent to a well known shopping district called Chinglee just to while away time\n\u2013 this was an alley of sorts with numerous stalls selling a whole lot of different\nitems though there did seem like there were a lot of establishments selling\nprepared and raw food. Bought a couple of souvenirs there and then headed back\nto the hotel where we picked up our bags and headed to Kyoto train station by\nmetro to catch our train back to Tokyo where Lekshmi and Brito met us and we\nheaded back to their apartment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the day of our departure we took an airport bus from the ANA Intercontinental hotel where Brito dropped us with our bags to head to Haneda airport for our return flight to the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All in all, it was a great vacation \u2013 all the more remarkable\nin that Japan was never on our bucket list of places we wanted to visit. We\nonly did so because Lekshmi and Brito were stationed there with the US Embassy\nand so it seemed an opportune time to make a visit \u2013 and we are glad that we\ndid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the benefit of hindsight we should have spent about 4 days in Kyoto, made a day trip to Hiroshima and perhaps included a two day visit to Osaka which which  was missing from our itinerary. As it worked out the itinerary we made in the US resulted in us spending only two days in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2343"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2390,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343\/revisions\/2390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}