Seeing as work as been painfully slow (a blessing and a curse), it seems only logical to use my down time to catch up on my blog. Especially considering I'm still jet lagged and will most likely pass out around 8 PM, like I did last night. Oops.
Anyway, on to Kyoto! The first day was rather uneventful as most of it was travel. We woke up at the crack of dawn (5 AM...which is akin to torture after all that travel the day before) so we could get to the station on time to catch our shinkansen train to Kyoto, which left around 6:30, I believe. Though, I shouldn't complain about getting up early as we got a special deal on our train tickets and hotel. It was dirt cheap at roughly $200 for a round trip shinkansen ticket AND two nights at a nice hotel. The shinkansen ticket alone would have cost that much if Taka's mom hadn't found the special promotion. Yay for Taka's mom!
I actually have a small hand-written journal entry that I wrote while on the train. I'll have to dig it up later. The train ride was delightfully uneventful. It was incredibly smooth, which made it easy to doze off. Even so, we could sleep because Kyoto wasn't the last stop for the train and if we dozed off, we would risk missing our stop and ending up god knows where (well, the last stop, but I can't remember where that is!) With a healthy dose of coffee and some good conversation with Taka pretty much solved the drowsiness issue.
Once we got into Kyoto around 9:30, we had to amuse ourselves for a few hours before Ann's bus arrived. All I can say is thank god for the lockers in Japanese train stations. If I had to lug my bag around Kyoto the whole time before we checked into the hotel, I'd have probably cried. They are kind of like the lockers at Disney, only you don't have to put a second mortgage on your house to rent it. It was 400 ($3.50) for one day for a small locker and 600 yen ($5.30) for one day for a large locker. Quite reasonable if you ask me.
Taka wanted to find a cyber cafe while we were waiting for Ann, so he proceeded search the surrounding area for any. Surprisingly, he didn't find a single one. I figured they would be all over the place, but then again, Kyoto is a weird city. It's far more traditional that most places (well, at least it is more traditional than Tokyo). By the time we got off our train, put our stuff in lockers, and returned unsuccessful from our cyber cafe hunt, we decided to grab something to eat. Neither of us had breakfast, so an early lunch sounded good to me.
Taka wanted to find a cyber cafe while we were waiting for Ann, so he proceeded search the surrounding area for any. Surprisingly, he didn't find a single one. I figured they would be all over the place, but then again, Kyoto is a weird city. It's far more traditional that most places (well, at least it is more traditional than Tokyo). By the time we got off our train, put our stuff in lockers, and returned unsuccessful from our cyber cafe hunt, we decided to grab something to eat. Neither of us had breakfast, so an early lunch sounded good to me.
There is one thing about Japanese restaurants that I particularly like (besides delicious food). I would say that 95% of all restaurants have plastic food displays in their windows or outside their restaurant to advertise what exactly they offer. This is genius, in my opinion. Sure, you could stick a menu out there, but there's no guarantee anyone has even heard of the dishes listed or, in my case, I might not be able to read/understand what it is (garg! Kanji kills me!!) Plastic food displays are almost like the picture menus you see in Chinese restaurants in the US, only less nauseating and without the creepy 80's vibe.
We decided on a tonkatsu restaurant in the station. If you've never had tonkatsu, you have never lived. It is by far on of my favorite foods of all time. Of course, it's fried so that could have something to do with it. I'd eat just about anything if it's deep fried. For those of you who don't know what it is, tonkatsu (ton meaning pork and katsu meaning fried) is a pork cutlet that is dredged in panko (Japanese breadcrumbs...far superior to our western counterparts when that ever satisfying fried crunch is concerned) and deep fried till golden brown. Drooling yet? It is simple to make, with just a few ingredients yet it is amazingly delicious. It is traditionally served with a bed of shredded raw cabbage (which I have mixed feelings about) and tonkatsu sauce, which is like a sweet barbecue sauce. I'm not sure which I like better, the tonkatsu or the sauce. If you live anywhere near an Asian market, they probably have the Bull-dog brand and I command you to go buy some right now. I eat it on just about everything.
The place Taka took me was a nicer tonkatsu restaurant, so they gave us a variety of sauces to choose from. We even got to make our own. They gave us each a mortar and pestle to grind sesame seeds. Once coarsely ground, we added the tonkatsu sauce, I also love sesame, so I was quite delighted by this.
I ate a lot of tonkatsu on my trip, but the one I had in Kyoto was the best. If you ever find yourself in Kyoto station looking for something to eat, I highly recommend Katsukura. You'll be hooked for life.
We decided on a tonkatsu restaurant in the station. If you've never had tonkatsu, you have never lived. It is by far on of my favorite foods of all time. Of course, it's fried so that could have something to do with it. I'd eat just about anything if it's deep fried. For those of you who don't know what it is, tonkatsu (ton meaning pork and katsu meaning fried) is a pork cutlet that is dredged in panko (Japanese breadcrumbs...far superior to our western counterparts when that ever satisfying fried crunch is concerned) and deep fried till golden brown. Drooling yet? It is simple to make, with just a few ingredients yet it is amazingly delicious. It is traditionally served with a bed of shredded raw cabbage (which I have mixed feelings about) and tonkatsu sauce, which is like a sweet barbecue sauce. I'm not sure which I like better, the tonkatsu or the sauce. If you live anywhere near an Asian market, they probably have the Bull-dog brand and I command you to go buy some right now. I eat it on just about everything.
The place Taka took me was a nicer tonkatsu restaurant, so they gave us a variety of sauces to choose from. We even got to make our own. They gave us each a mortar and pestle to grind sesame seeds. Once coarsely ground, we added the tonkatsu sauce, I also love sesame, so I was quite delighted by this.
I ate a lot of tonkatsu on my trip, but the one I had in Kyoto was the best. If you ever find yourself in Kyoto station looking for something to eat, I highly recommend Katsukura. You'll be hooked for life.
After a very satisfying lunch, we still had a little bit of time to kill, so we took some pictures around the station. They had a large Christmas light display, which was quite unassuming during the day, but gorgeous at night. Naturally, it was easy to get a shot of it during the day, but once the sun when down, getting that perfect picture turned into an extreme sport. I've never seen that sort of enthusiasm for Christmas lights in my life, and the Japanese don't even really celebrate Christmas!
Finally it was time to meet Ann, which might sound easy but you would be mistaken. Apparently depending on what bus company she was using determined on which side of the station she would arrive. Sounds simple, but Kyoto station is BIG. It probably took 10-15 minutes to walk from one side to another. Anyway, we were unsure, so we asked one of the station attendants, and they said that she would arrive on the other side. So, we trekked all the way over only to find out that was big fat lie! She was arrive on other side, where we had thought she would come in the first place. So we hauled it back and parked it on a granite bench, which wasn't really a bench. It was just decoration, according to Taka. It looked like a bench, so I sat on it. :P
Once she arrived, we gathered our belongings from the lockers and took the train our hotel, which was conveniently located right next to a station. It was a really nice hotel for what we ended up paying (yay for specials!) They even had a traditional garden, but I never got the chance to take pictures of it. The only down side was we ended up on a smoking floor because we didn't think to specify otherwise when making the reservations. But, they did have an air purifier in the room, so that helped.
Taka's grandmother lives about 45 minutes from Kyoto, and since he hadn't seen her in a long time, he decided go visit. Not wanting to intrude, he went alone and left me and Ann to our own devices. We slept. Hehe. We rolled out of bed a few hours later to scrounge up some food. We decided on ramen, but of course, couldn't find a single ramen joint on the main strip by our hotel. We weren't brave enough to venture off the beaten path, especially since it was dark (gets dark at like 4:30 PM there!) and we were down a translator should we get lost. We settled on convenience store tempura bentos, which were mighty delicious.
The rest of the evening was spent relaxing, eating and watching Japanese television, which really deserves a post of it's own. I conked out pretty early, even though I'd slept most of the afternoon. Gotta love jet lag!!
Kyoto Day 2 coming soon!
Finally it was time to meet Ann, which might sound easy but you would be mistaken. Apparently depending on what bus company she was using determined on which side of the station she would arrive. Sounds simple, but Kyoto station is BIG. It probably took 10-15 minutes to walk from one side to another. Anyway, we were unsure, so we asked one of the station attendants, and they said that she would arrive on the other side. So, we trekked all the way over only to find out that was big fat lie! She was arrive on other side, where we had thought she would come in the first place. So we hauled it back and parked it on a granite bench, which wasn't really a bench. It was just decoration, according to Taka. It looked like a bench, so I sat on it. :P
Once she arrived, we gathered our belongings from the lockers and took the train our hotel, which was conveniently located right next to a station. It was a really nice hotel for what we ended up paying (yay for specials!) They even had a traditional garden, but I never got the chance to take pictures of it. The only down side was we ended up on a smoking floor because we didn't think to specify otherwise when making the reservations. But, they did have an air purifier in the room, so that helped.
Taka's grandmother lives about 45 minutes from Kyoto, and since he hadn't seen her in a long time, he decided go visit. Not wanting to intrude, he went alone and left me and Ann to our own devices. We slept. Hehe. We rolled out of bed a few hours later to scrounge up some food. We decided on ramen, but of course, couldn't find a single ramen joint on the main strip by our hotel. We weren't brave enough to venture off the beaten path, especially since it was dark (gets dark at like 4:30 PM there!) and we were down a translator should we get lost. We settled on convenience store tempura bentos, which were mighty delicious.
The rest of the evening was spent relaxing, eating and watching Japanese television, which really deserves a post of it's own. I conked out pretty early, even though I'd slept most of the afternoon. Gotta love jet lag!!
Kyoto Day 2 coming soon!
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