Our first plan was to sleep in. Unfortunately, this didn't happen, we were both up by 9. We went to the grocery store and took our time finding breakfast, trying a few new foods, and then we went back to the room to eat them. I got this yummy sushi roll type food. Inside was the Japanese style scramble egg, cucumber, and some other veggies, then a layer of seaweed, rice, and on top of the rice was unagi (fresh water eel) with the special eel sauce and sesame seeds. It was awesome. We got some new and different rice balls, mine looked like it had centipedes in it, but it was good. Aren tried a different kind of sushi thing, with fish in it, but he liked it. However, he's not a seaweed fan, and I think he's at his yearly limit of the stuff 9 days into our trip.
During and after breakfast, we enjoyed a few hours of doing nothing. We hung out on the computer, and enjoyed the two English language channels available in the room: CNN and Discovery. How about that Democratic Debate?
At about 1 we decided it was time to do something. Aren got info on how to get bikes near the station (this time with a better map) and we set out for them. This place was a pretty good, 1300 yen a day and was really close to the station. Some places charge as much as 600 yen an hour,definitely something to shop around for. We got our bikes and quickly relearned how to ride them, it has been years since either of us have been on a bike. They are right, you never do forget how to ride a bike.
Kyoto is said to be a nice city to bike around. I have to agree with that. However, bike vs. pedestrian etiquette is really hit and miss, making for some challenging situations and close calls. Bikes ride on the sidewalks in Japan, sharing space with the pedestrians. Many of them do not respond to you, staying right in your way, even after you sound your bell or scoot on past them. Sometimes it's on accident, they don't realise you are there, but other times, they honestly don't care.
Another thing to note about Kyoto and bikes, is that while it is a nice city to bike around, it is not a nice city for parking your bikes. Bike parking facilities are few and far in between, and the police are notorious for towing bikes. If you get your bike towed it is a hefty fine as well: 20,000 yen + 5 days of rental service. That's about the price of a new bike! However, we didn't get off our bikes very much, so we didn't run into this problem.
We still didn't have a plan, we just didn't want to see temples all day. We both had an end point in mind, but we had a miscommunication as to what the goals were. From our hotel room we could see a giant Buddha in the foothills. Aren wanted to go see that. I had circled the Silver Pavilion as something I wanted to see. Both were on the eastern side of the city near the mountains, however the Pavilion was heck of a lot further than the Buddha. I thought we were going to the Buddha, Aren thought we were going to the Pavilion. We didn't see either.
We stopped at this temple we can see from our room. It wasn't very exciting.
Later on we passed this Michelin place
At about 3:30, 2 hours into riding, we realized that we both had different idea on where we were going. We were way past the Buddha, and maybe half way to the Pavilion. We kept going towards the Pavilion, but we weren't set on getting there. At about 4 we decided to head back to the hotel. We got some cold soba noodles at a Lawson's market, and tried these awesome waffle ice cream deserts. They were like ice cream cones all bundled up in an easy to eat package. However they had-- you guessed it-- beans in them. Not enough to ruin the treat, however. Mark this down as the second bean desert we've liked, out of maybe the 8 we've tried.
Luckily for us, we were going up hill all day, so the trip back to the hotel was all down hill and felt glorious. The wind was on our faces, and at some points, the sidewalk was wide and empty and we were going really fast. We returned the bikes at about 5 and hobbled back to the hotel room, Aren joked how this was supposed to be our chill day.
After a quick rest we decided to get dinner. We wanted to try something different from the raman we have been enjoying. We settled on a teppan restaurant. The prices were decent, and the place was pretty nice. In the middle of the table was a hot grill. They brought our food out on aluminum foil, and was placed on the grill, which was heated enough to keep the food hot, but not hot enough to keep cooking it.
Aren got beef, and with the help of the phrase book was able to successfully able to order his meat well done. No Brookie, burnt to a crisp was not in the book. The look he got when he ordered it was funny, though. I guess they don't usually get that request. I tried this awesome pork with an assortment of mushrooms.
We are learning in this country that after you order 2 things, if the waiter asks "is that all" it probably means that the serving sizes are small and you need more than what you ordered. We were still hungry after we cleaned our foil, so we ordered one of the Japanese pancake dishes they served here. They had many: ones with cabbage, green onion, standard, and yakisoba noodles. We got the negi-yaki, which has green onion in it, with squid. It was alright, honestly there were way too many green onions.
After dinner we went to the hotel bar, that has the most hilarious music. There is a play list of maybe 4 or 5 songs which include Raindrops on Roses and some Abba song. We don't know how the guys working there didn't go absolutely crazy.
No comments:
Post a Comment