It cleared up again so today I spent more time wandering around Kyoto. One of my first stops was Nijo-jo which, as usual for my trip, was just crawling with school kids. Soon after I entered the grounds I had one group of kids come up and say “Hello” and then try to say something else, but I just couldn’t make it out. I apologized and moved on, only to have another group of kids pounce on me. This time their english was better and after we went through introductions, I learned they were hungry and liked baseball : ) . Turns out it was part of some school project for they had me fill out a little slip with my name and where I was from and in return I got a slip describing how they were 6th graders from Awaji Island, that their town produces lots of onions, and how they really hope I’ll send them either a letter or email so they can learn more about foreign countries. The slip even had a bunch of custom colored pencil drawings on it. When I get home I’ll have take some pictures around Seattle and send them an email.
This turned out to be the theme for the day. Before I even left Nijo I had even more school kids say “hello” and another group of older kids ask if we could have our pictures taken together. This carried on as I went to other shrines where I was asked what I liked best about Kyoto for yet another school project and had my picture taken yet again. The capper was when I passed a long stream of little kids, probably 2nd graders, and had this continuos stream of “hello”s as filed on by. Very cute.
Anyway, Nijo-jo was the first place I visited that had actual nightingale floors that made a melodious cacophony with all the foot traffic filing through. From there I wandered up the the Imperial Palace Park. You can tour the palace but you need reservations. I had none and although I heard you can usually get in the same day I decided to push on past Kyoto University towards Ginkakuji Temple. Along the way I stopped by Chionji Temple which was populated only by a couple of lone students looking for a quite place to have lunch. Lunch seemed like a good idea at that point so I swung by a little restaurant where I had their “mini-katsu udon” combo. There was nothing mini about it, I had a nice size bowl of rice topped with a thick layer of egg and tonkatsu, a big bowl of udon in a mild dashi broth, a chunk of soft tofu topped with green onion and dried fish flakes, and some japanese pickles for only 600 yen.
From there I wandered over to Ginkakuji Temple, which again was overrun with school kids. Besides having some nice sand gardens, the grounds were amazing. The hillside is covered with a green moss that is swept clean of leaves making it look like a natural carpet. From there I headed down the Philosopher’s Path, a beautiful canal side walking trail, down to Eikan-do Temple. Eikan-do was a nice, shady, serene temple that was enough off the beaten path that it was only lightly crowded. After pausing for some soft-serve green tea ice cream, I headed down to Nanzenji Temple where I again caught up with the crowds. Nanzenji has a big entrance gate where if you are willing to dish out 500 yen and walk up some really steep stairs you can get some good views. They also have an roman looking aqueduct and nice garden you can go through. I finished up at Konchi-in Temple, a beautiful garden in the shadow of Nanzenji that apparently most people don’t find since I had the place all to my self.
For dinner, I headed down to the underground mall right by the train station that has a ton of restaurants. I decided to continue on the katsu theme and have some some classic tonkatsu with dipping sauce. The sauce was a lot less sweet than the tonkatsu I’d had in the states and very good. There is so much more stuff I have to try before I go home!