Et voilà! I had my soup.

Day 15

By the second day in Kyoto I knew that my plan for Kyoto was too ambitious. I finally understood why some travellers spend a week or two in Kyoto. It is such a big city (specially if you walk), interesting sights everywhere, a temple or shrine in every corner, so much to do and experience. So I had to be realistic. Oh no!

I convinced the boys to wake up extra early so we could have time for several stops in different parts of the city on the same day.

First stop was Ryoanji Temple, mostly known for it's rock garden: a collection of 15 rocks in a sea of sand, which is meticulously brushed. We wonder how they do the circular brushing around the  rocks without messing up the transversal lines... 

With a viewing platform to the rock garden there is a tea house with beautifully painted doors. 

Jorge didn't like the garden, I thought it was quite relaxing and laid out in an harmonious way. There is also the rest of the garden of the temple, which is pretty but didn't seem to draw as much attention from other tourists.

It paid off coming as soon as it opened. As we were leaving there was a huge crowd arriving.

From there we headed to the Imperial Palace for the guided tour. The

palace was crowded with foreigners, waiting for the english tour.

There was an introduction video first and then a brief explanation of the story of the palace by the guide. We visited mainly the grounds of the palace and the gardens, we looked through the windows to see some special rooms but we never went in. It is worth a visit and it is free.

(This is the Throne Pavilion. It has white pebbles in front to reflect the sun and moonlight. Note how it looks so white in the photo when compared with the other photos that have darker pebbles. It really does the job!)

Nishijin Textile Centre next. I was curious to know what it was. It's basically the center for the promotion of traditional silk weaving in Japan. It has some explanation of where the silk comes and how it is worked and even a woman working in one of the looms. There was also a kimono fashion show. However, what they mainly do is comerce. We all did some shopping, not just me.

Heading to Nishiki market at lunch time. It was crowded on a Saturday. The market sells the best fresh products available in Kyoto. The stalls have a variety of items and all look really good. 

(Machine used to ground the matcha tea, the expensive japanese green tea used in the tea ceremony).

We had lunch at a sushi restaurante. The waitress's english was really bad, we pointed to the plastic menus to choose. They also had a menu for different types of nigiri and I tried some shellfish ones. The fish was fresh and delicious.

On the way to the accomodation we stopped in a kimono shop. I have waited 10 years to buy a silk kimono. I think I did good. The seller tried to sell me sandals and bag to go with the kimono but the ones he had were sooo old fashion! I left the shop with a full kimomo, accessories I'll find in Tokyo.

Shopping was left at the accomodation and we headed to the Tetsugaku-no-michi, aka Philosopher's Path. It covers 2km and it was named after the philosopher Niahida Kitaro, who liked to walk along this route and meditate on philosophical matters.

The path is lined with cherry trees and although the majority has already lost their flowers some still persist. We got there very late though and it wasn't possible to see much let alone take any decent photographs. I would recommed to do the path during the day, with natural light.

One of our guidebooks said that the path was illuminated at night during cherry bloom season, yet there wasn't any illumination. Our plan was to see the cherry trees during the day and then illuminated at night. Do not put too much faith on guidebooks, make sure you check online beforehand, if that is possible.

It was near 8pm and we found ourselves in a residential area of Kyoto and it was pretty dark (streets in Japan don't have many street lamps). Private houses yes but not many restaurants. Some restaurants were empty, some had japanese menu only, no pictures. Ah!, 'food adventure again' we thought.

We decided to get into one that looked quite simple, a small local restaurant. It  was managed by two old ladies who brought us an english menu. Ohhh!

In Japan, it doesn't matter where you eat, it will always be of good quality and very tasty. From the simplest of restaurants to the more expensive, you can't get it wrong!

The meal above is Zaru soba and it was my meal. Soba is the thin noodle made of a combination of buckwheat and wheat flour, as oposed to the udon which is the thick one and made only of wheat. This one is cold (hence not swiming in a bowl of stock as the usual noodle meal) and it is served with a dipping sauce called tsuyu (mix of soup stock and mirin, which is underneath the small plate with wasabi and spring onions). It is a very simple meal with no protein and a big quantity of noodles. Mix the spring onions and wasabi in the sauce, dip the noodles in it and eat. 

The night was cold and this meal didn't warm me up for obvious reasons. So I decided to ask for a miso soup. One of the ladies brought me a glass of cold water, which is a word similar to miso!! I thanked but refused. They were a bit puzzled and the other lady decided to bring me what looked like a tea pot but with hot water. She pointed to the dipping sauce. So I poured the hot water into the remaining sauce. Et voilà! I had my soup. 

We went past Gion on our way back to the accomodation. I must say that Gion did not meet my expectations in the sense that I was expecting it to be better preserved. Portuguese traditional villages or the Cotswolds villages in England are completely preserved. Houses are kept as they were hundreds of years ago, old stone roads and there isn't much of a modern feel.

Gion however has several huge comercial streets where restaurants and souvenir shops compete for the attention of tourists. It is almost impossible to take a picture without catching a car or a tourism bus or a group of tourists. As Tomo san explained yesterday, if it weren't for commerce and tourism, Gion would have probably declined. I understand that but could there not be a protected area where the true spirit of Gion lived and then all that is touristic around, paying a tax to support Gion?

Tonight we managed to see more of the back streets and we got the sense that although there is a lot of comerce in Gion, those small alleyways are actually very well preserved and keep to the ancient look. Tomo san had also shown us a couple more of these streets and when you look at them ignoring the hustle and bustle of the main roads, then you can see the true Gion. The wooden houses with latticed doors and windows that stop you from looking inside, the small curtains at the door, New Years good luck charms on the top of the doors, Maiko hastily walking down the street to their next engagement, Geiko avoiding tourist's photographs. Yes, Gion is there!