4/22/08 Kyoto

I woke up pretty early to head to he Kobo-san market fair which is held monthly at the To-Ji temple. It is a massive market/flea market kind of thing held on the grounds of this temple. There are food stands, people selling used kimonos and clothes, crafts, pottery, jewelry, etc. Like everywhere here there is also fish and fish products for sale. It goes in many directions and spills out onto the surrounding streets. I bought some hand-made pottery and at these pancake like things that were filled with custard- fantastic.

Next I headed back to Kyoto station to do an organized tour I read about- Johnnie’s Kyoto walking tour. It is a tour through non-touristy back streets of Kyoto. I wish I can say it was good- it wasn’t. The tour guide is one of the first Japanese person I have encountered who was not helpful- not good for a tour guide. In addition there were over 30 people in the group- which made it move along VERY slow. I could have done the whole thing in an hour and a half- we took 5. He provided some interesting information but overall it was a wash.

The tour ended very close to the Kiyomizu-dera temple (which we went to last trip). Nearby are the Ninen-zaka and Sannen-Zaka areas which are 2 restored neighborhoods with old wooden houses, lots of nice shops and restaurants- it is really a great place to walk around and poke in shops. I walked around them and headed to the Kodai-Ji which has beautiful landscaping, gardens and a lovely view of Kyoto.

After the temple I walked around these neighborhoods some more and checked out an incense store that was huge. Kyoto is famous for incense (among other things). I then walked over to Gion (Geisha district). It is VERY touristy and a lot of the buildings are modernized and I didn’t find it all that great so I headed back to my Ryokan.

For the record attempting to find good restaurants without Kuniko is very difficult. The lonely planet book I have is not great for restaurants and more often than not the places with English menus aren’t great. Las night we went to a small yakitori place and I ordered a salad- with tuna- it was about 50% mountain yam which is the slimy stuff I hate- basically imagine a sald DRENCHED in a clear, tasteless slime- I ate most of it anyway. So tonite I just couldn’t be bothered and joined the English couple at an all you can eat buffet they found in the train station. Although it wasn’t up to the level Kuniko can find (not even close) it still had a lot of good fresh veggies and overall was good. The fact that I could look at what I was eating before eating it was wonderful. Also it was quite nice to have dinner with people (eating alone is OK but can get old).