Okay, so the last of the three temples we saw in kyoto was called nanzenji. (Last in order of this post, actually the second one we saw that day.) This one was our favorite and it really was incredibly beautiful. Part of what it is famous for is it giant aqueduct seen above.
When we were in Kyoto, Aaron and I had lunch at a lovely, delicious little Italian place. It was part Italian bistro, part cafe. Good coffee is hard to come by in Japan, so the prospect of having a good cuppa was too much to resist. I gave in to the temptation and ordered myself an iced mocha.
When the waitress brought out our drinks a broad smile crossed my face. The iced mocha was in a tall glass and it looked perfect. The coffee was a perfect, dark shade of rich, choclatey brown. There was a large mound of fluffy whipped cream on top, lightly sprinkled with cocoa powder, and it had a bendy straw (I LOVE that almost every straw here is a bendy straw).
Along with my iced mocha they gave me a long, skinny spoon. I immediately took the spoon and scooped up just enough of the whipped topping with a little of the coffee for flavor. I put it in my mouth, ran it over my tongue, and immediately noticed that something was not quite right.
It wasn’t whipped cream on top of my iced mocha, it was fluffy, white, buttercream frosting!! It was definitley not the light, fluffy whipped topping that I had been hoping for, but the sweet tooth in me definitely approved. It was rich and decadent and quite delicious.
I get this sense that the restaurantuers looked at pictures of fancy coffee drinks one day. They saw that all the drinks had some sort of white topping. Not knowing exactly what that was, they decided to improvise. Thinking, “Hmmm…what could we put on top that is white, and fluffy, and sweet?” Someone had the brainstorm that buttercream frosting might do the trick, after all they had a case filled with cakes and sweets many of which were topped with the same frosting. It would be simple to make a little more frosting each day for the drinks. And, before you know it, they all agreed.
And from that day forward, all the coffee drinks were topped with frosting. No one ever complained because, despite being unconventional, people enjoyed the indulgence. Most people do not sit down and eat a half-cup of frosting, even though they secretly want to, but this restaurant made it possible for the masses to do so. After all, you ordered the coffee drink and it would be rude not to drink it!
One of the things I like most about visiting new places is wandering through streets and neighborhoods. I like to get a sense for how a place feels. How the people live.
This is a picture of something that caught my eye as we walked through the streets of Kyoto. Places are notoriously small here. Some restaurants barely hold 15 people. Houses can be as little as 400 square feet. But this one really surprised me.
Aaron and I stopped, and studied this house for a few moments. It is incredibly narrow! So narrow, in fact, that it was unclear whether the house was wider than Aaron was tall. It is entirely possible that he would have been unable to lie down in this house, at least in one direction.
After To-ji, we visited two more temples in Kyoto. Both of them, Nanzen-ji (Aaron will tell you about that one) and Ginkaku-ji were on the eastern side of the city.
There were things I liked about each place we visited, but I especially liked Ginkaku-ji. The weather didn’t fully cooperate while we were at Ginkaku-ji, and the crowds were much heavier, but, even still, I thought it was a truly amazing, and beautiful place.
After our adventures in Gifu Park on Saturday, we decided to take a day trip on Sunday to Kyoto. I have had the itch to go SOMEWHERE for several weeks now, after all, we are in Japan. I feel like we should be out, seeing stuff.
But, more important than travelling around this country, has been getting settled. Getting accustomed to our little area of the world, and starting to feel comfortable in our surroundings. Now that we feel a bit more stable and adjusted, we were more comfortable leaving our familiar Gifu city, for something a bit out of our comfort zone.
When I told my supervisor that I was interested in taking a day trip to Kyoto, she took me up to the library and asked the librarian for some Kyoto guidebooks. She showed me pictures of famous places, and tried to get a sense of what I would be interested in seeing. After spending a few hours looking at things, we had developed an itinerary. She showed me a map and identified the locations of several of her favorites sights to see in Kyoto. I was ready and prepared with an itinerary for our Sunday adventure.