Takaragaike and more curry

Today Benna and I went on a long bike ride to the North end of town. I wanted to explore an area that I remembered from my childhood, and I knew from the map that there was a lake to explore. Plus, the girls needed to spend some time apart after much bickering yesterday. So off we went.

After about twenty minutes following the river upstream, the neighborhood started changing and I felt that we were in the right area. I followed a few sidestreets and we emerged at a large playground. I don't think it was the same place I remembered from 1975, but it was just what Benna wanted! There was climbing stuff, swings, and most importantly WATER to splash in! Benna liked the saucer-swing.



Note the bathrooms - one for Men, one for Women, and one for Children! (Up to third grade they don't separate the boys and girls here.)



The area is called Takaragaike, and I knew a bit about the place - there is a large reservoir and the famous Kyoto International Conference Center nearby. It was tough dragging Benna away from the playground, but eventually I convinced her that it was time for lunch and off we pedaled.

Very quickly I found the path that led to the spot pictured below. To our north was the conference center where the famous "Kyoto Protocol" was written. To our south was the Takaragaike reservoir, with turtles and carp and paddle boats.



The ride back to town was mostly downhill so it went quickly. It was easy to convince Benna that a return trip to the curry restaurant would be a good idea! This time I had my camera, so I can show you what the place is like.



The counter can seat nine, but if the stools were all occupied by adults, everyone would be rubbing shoulders! The long view shows pretty much the entire place. Notice the lady sitting in the distance, that's the chef. We had Chicken and Beef curry on rice. Benna found it a bit spicy but delicious. Here are before and after shots!



Another fine day.

This last shot is for my parents. Does this building look familiar? The corner of Konoe and Higashioji! (One block north of the curry restaurant.)

Kinkakuji - The Golden Pavillion

Today was another hot and lovely day. We began separately, Jana and Benna went to the dollar store and bought nail polish, then went out for a burger.

Aleeza and I walked to Yoshida shrine, which is a big and beautiful complex of shrines on a hillside right down the street from our apartment. I think I got the better end of this deal, but unfortunately I did not bring my camera so you'll have to take my word for it.

After the shrine, we walked over to a Curry restaurant that I had scoped out a few days ago, and sure enough it was awesome. They had vegetarian curry, which Aleeza enjoyed although it was a bit spicy. The place was tiny, about 7 feet by fifteen feet, with seats for nine people at a small counter. The cooking pots are right in front of you, where the old lady who cooks the food has a small stool to sit on. The other employee was young guy who ran around serving the customers. He was very helpful, translating the menu for us on his cell phone - apparently "there's an app for that!"

Then we returned to the apartment and the girls all painted their toenails.

Next, we walked to the big intersection where we intended to board the bus for Kinkakuji. We got the bus right, but the map didn't tell the schedule, and after suffering through ten minutes of walking in the heat, we learned that the bus runs each half hour and we had just missed one. So we did what any civilized family would have done, we got ice cream.

A bus ride later and we were at the Golden Pavillion, Kinkakuji, the number one most popular tourist site in all of Kyoto, maybe in all of Japan. Here are some views:



OK, you get the idea. It was really crowded! Eventually the crowd thinned out and we got a nice view of the place.



It is incredibly beautiful, and with with a little imagination it is possible to picture it as a peaceful place. The gardens are also very pretty, and there are several other buildings in the complex, including a sweet "tea house" that is my favorite.

After the Golden Pavillion, we walked a few blocks to the second attraction of the afternoon...sushi!

The "Kaiten Zushi" (conveyer belt sushi) place that we knew of was right around the corner. This place is awesome! Benna had already mastered the system of special-ordering.



(Notice the green bracelet on her arm? That's the "Nagashima Spaland" admission pass from last week!)

Jana thinks she made a serious dent with her stack of plates.



I don't mean to boast, but I ate way more than her!



We all feasted on the things we liked, and tried a few things we didn't like. (Benna tried "hamburger" sushi! Jana and I tried "sardine" which was fishy.) Aleeza was happy with Udon and edamame.

Including sake (cold and delicious) and dessert (Melon slices, Chocolate-Banana parfait, Mango sorbet with fruit), the whole ordeal came to about 40 dollars. That's a sushi feast for a family of four!

The bus ride home was a bit more difficult because the tourist line we took earlier had stopped running for the day. I was pretty confident that I had figured out "plan B," then a nice lady started telling me not to get on this bus and go to the other side of the street and take a different bus. I politely thanked her and did not follow her advice - a risky move but it turned out I was correct about the bus, and had we taken her advice we would have wound up at the train station, far from home. Just goes to show you....

Tomorrow we will probably take it slow, as it will be super hot again. There is a "river festival" near the apartment in the afternoon. Two more weeks to go!

Downtown....in Kyoto

This morning I had to return to the bike shop to swap out the rental bike, so it seemed like a good excuse to spend some time downtown by myself.

Shopping is a popular activity here, so there is a serious amount of shopping 'infrastructure." I visited some of the big department stores, but no stories or photos. Basically there are many floors, and mostly there are small boutique sections with brand names, very expensive. The basement is a big supermarket but again it is very chic and expensive, we are told that most people shop there for gifts but not for home. At ten dollars a peach and forty for a melon, I can see why.

The big stores are located along a street that has a covered sidewalk, which also extends along several nearby streets. They have developed into long crowded pedestrian shopping zones. Here are a few views.



Some of the stores are weirdly western and seem geared toward tourists, but most are regular stores. I stopped at a pharmacy and had I wanted hair color or diet supplements, I would have had many choices!



In the middle of the shopping area there were also shrines and temples. This is Kyoto!



After a grocery store meal of prepared food - sushi, potato salad and sweet bean paste balls, I cycled back uptown and met up with the family. It had become another hot hot day, so the girls wanted to splash around. The river was pretty low, and neither of them wanted to play in the murky water. That didn't discourage Benna, she made her own splash fun in a little fountain, with the help of a towel we had brought along!



After a nice visit with our English-speaking neighbor, Jana and I went out for dinner and left the girls at the apartment. We wandered for a while before deciding on a place to eat. We were noodled out, and the meat places seemed boring, and there was no cheap sushi around. Eventually we found a place that looked not too expensive and based on the pictures outside, we had no idea what the food was all about! So, in we went.



Turns out "Okonomiyaki" is an Osaka-style food, and we are pretty close to Osaka. The table has a grill in the middle, and they bring you a pancake that is made of a mixture of ingredients. The pancake stays warm on the grill and you cut it up with a spatula and add spices on top. Jana didn't love it, but I thought it was great! we got one that was eggs and scallions and bread crumbs, the other was cabbage and shrimp and flour. Yummy.

More Misadventures

A good story to tell from today but first, some beauty shots from the last few days.
Here's Benna at the Zoo, riding an elephant. (It really was the zoo, but seeing the elephants wasn't enough for Benna, she insisted on a ride!)



These next pictures are from the costume museum.
I described that adventure in the previous post.



We started the day on bicycles, a short ride to the Heian Shrine area. It is a huge and beautiful place, swarming with tourists. It is not that old or historically significant, but it is very popular and photogenic.



We skipped the gardens and after a short walk around the grounds in the blazing sun, headed for the 7-eleven for a snack. Amazingly, several large groups of school kids had the exact same idea, and the place was absolutely packed. We had never seen anything like it. The line reached to the back of the store. But in Japanese style, it was very orderly and efficient and within a few minutes we were eating our riceballs on the sidewalk (in the blazing sun.)



Here's a picture of some other patrons, some businessmen. Long pants, sleeves rolled up, smoking. cigarettes. What a life.



After the hot morning and a visit to the supermarket, we decided to head to Lake Biwa to cool off at the beach. We had been discussing this trip for a while, and originally we were going to go tomorrow when there is a huge fireworks display. But last night our friend Keiji cautioned us about the crowds, and some more internet research seemed to support the idea that it would be like times square on new year's eve, and we were not up for that with the girls. So, we went this afternoon. I had seen some pictures of sandy beaches, and the map showed two "waterfront park" areas in the main town, Otsu, so we packed our bathing suits and towels and some store-made noodles and hopped the train for Hama-Otsu.

We found the Lake alright, and there was a waterfront, but beach....not so much!



So, what were we to do? We made the most of it and had our snack!



As we walked around, we could see lots of preparations going on for tomorrow night's fireworks. At the train station, they had huge stockades set up. There were temporary barriers everywhere. The website said that people would be charged 4,000 yen, about $45, to get into the park area for a decent view. YIKES! The security was already tight, as you can see, here was a local cop on his cycle.....



I was serious about the fences and the admission fee, though.

We walked quite a while before we asked someone about swimming. He suggested we walk to the "Prince Hotel," which was way WAY down the shore. We had nothing better to do so we walked there. It was SUPER swanky!



We tried the old "pretend we are guests" routine, and it worked, the staff all acted really friendly and helpful, and we found the amazing huge outdoor pool. They were stacking up the reclining chairs, and we were told that it closed at 6pm, and it was like 6:15. We were devastated! Luckily (kind of...) we had stopped along the way at a "sports club" and yes they had a pool and yes there would be open swim time at 7pm and it was only 210 yen (about $2.50) for the kids. So we schlepped our tired butts back there, and tried to get in, and apparently they didn't mention that the kids are only $2.50 when accompanied by an adult, at $4.50, and neither of us wanted to swim. So I went in. Then we learned that "open swim" means "one of the lanes is open for kids!" It was adult lap swim in all the other lanes! So not exactly a ton of fun, but the girls managed to laugh for a solid hour nonstop. Also, we all had to wear these funky swimming caps, even me. I didn't have the heart to explain that I was bald!

On the (long) walk back to the train, we were treated to one of the sights of Otsu - the "Hana Biwako" or "Lake Biwa Flower" fountain. It was tough to capture on camera, but very dramatic in real life.



A long, strenuous, and somewhat expensive haul all for a short swim in a pool! But a memorable adventure, and a different view of summer in Japan.

(PS - Turns out the sandy beaches are further up the lake, like twenty more minutes on the train. Next time!)

Hell On Wheels

No pictures this post, just a story.

Yesterday we decided to try out the bicycles. We had figured out a scheme for this, with Benna riding on the back of one bike, Jana riding solo, and Aleeza on the small bike. We found the bikes OK in the huge bike garage, and all seemed fine except that the wheels were all a bit soft. I had noticed several bike shops the previous night along a major nearby street, so we made our way there first.

Let me mention here that like most Japanese cities, Kyoto is primarily composed of hundreds of very small streets, some no more than alleys. Cars sometimes drive through, even small trucks, but they are very narrow. We started off toward the bike shop through some of these alleys and managed to find it. They happily pumped our tires, and we were on our way.

For the next segment of the ride we had to stick to major roads, That was a bit scary because were were still getting the feel for these bikes, Aleeza is not that strong on two wheels yet, and I was balancing Benna. Also, the sidewalks are teeming with people and bikes going both directions. But we managed, and before long we reached the Imperial Palace grounds, where we were able to pedal on the gravel paths without fear of cars or bikes or people as the place was pretty deserted.

So we only had to worry about the heat! In our enthusiasm to get out in the morning, we had neglected to pack much water and we didn't put on sunscreen at all. (Most Japanese people don't use sunscreen, by the way, they wear long sleeves and pants and hats. There are many products for sun, lightweight arm coverings, etc.) So we sweated and burned our way across the palace grounds and emerged in the "heart" of downtown Kyoto.

From there we followed mostly large boulevards down toward our destination, the Costume Museum. Actually we tried some small streets but found it difficult because of the many obstructions and the lack of anywhere to turn when a person or vehicle was approaching. Anyway we managed OK on the big sidewalks and got to the museum.

Jana and Aleeza had already visited this place, so I went in with the girls while Jana walked around outside to avoid paying 7 bucks to see a very small (two rooms) museum. Half an hour later, we met up outside. It was really hot at this point, so we cooled off in a convenience store with ice cream and sat in the air conditioning for quite a while.

So at that point it was like 4pm, rush hour traffic is starting to build up, and we are at the maximum distance from the apartment. Between us and "home" is a ride through the business district. We get ourselves organized and start the ride, and Jana comments that "it feels like we are riding uphill." I laugh this comment off, thinking it is psychological. A few minutes later we stop to get our bearings and she again says that it feels much harder this time. I look at her bike and see that her rear tire is totally flat, and the tire itself has been torn up pretty badly. OH NO!
realize that we are now in a part of town dominated by huge bank buildings and department stores. It is not the University area where we easily found bike shops that morning. It is almost 4:30, traffic is unbelievable, the kids are hungry and tired.....you get the picture!

We parked the bikes and split up. Jana took the girls to find food, I took myself to find a bike shop. After about half an hour of searching, I went into the lobby of a luxury hotel and acted like a guest, which wasn't too hard, and asked for advice on a bike shop. All went well until the clerk asked for my room number, and I told him I wasn't a guest. He did the "tilting the head sucking air between the teeth" thing which is a form of saying "NO!" in Japanese. But he did me a favor and found a bike shop, called them, and made me a map. I recovered the bike and brought it to the shop which was about half a mile away.

After much deliberation, the shop guys took the bike and handed me a phone. A woman at the other end spoke some English, so I explained the situation. She talked to the shop guy, and he hung up, wheeled my bike to the back, and wheeled a rental bike out to the front. He took my phone number and waved me goodbye. So, all was well!

Well, the bike problem was temporarily solved anyway. I returned to the corner where we had parked the bikes, and no Jana and the girls. I waited for a while and eventually they showed up. Apparently the girls suddenly both had to go potty, and it was not easy finding a place. The kids have not mastered the "asian style" toilets so they make us walk a long way to find "western style" toilets.

On returning, Aleeza was really sad to hear that I had a new bike for Jana. She had latched onto the idea that we were going to have to ditch the bikes downtown and take a bus home. We mounted our bikes and began the grind home. The pedestrian traffic was heavy, and much walking of bikes was needed that first mile or so. Eventually we got to the river, and we took the path for the last half of the ride which was a much better way to go.

By the time we got back to the apartment poor Aleeza had major blisters on her hands. Jana and I suffered little more than sore butts, but everyone was sweaty and tired. We felt that the girls both earned serious brownie points, though, because they only whined a little bit and the ride was very hot and very difficult. Aleeza became quite skilled at riding on those crowded sidewalks over the course of the day. (And Benna was a good scout on the back of my bike, looking back to see how far behind they were!)

So we arrived at the "Dormy Inn Express" and after taking a hot bath, it was time to head out for dinner. We were in such a great mood, we had to celebrate by finishing off the "white sake" that we had brought from Takayama. (Actually the stuff is perishable so we had to drink it, but it was delicious anyway!)



Afterward we went to the front desk and asked for directions to the nearest curry restaurant....well that didn't work out so well. Everyone was hungry but the clerks were all rushing around and discussing in Japanese and they kept saying "just a minute" and we didn't want to be rude, so we waited while Benna whined and even Aleeza worried that she might die of starvation. Eventually they gave us a map and directions for a taxi to drive us like fifteen minutes to an Indian place, or we could walk down the street to a nearby "family restaurant." That sounded pretty good so we walked along the boulevard of neon and traffic, and found it without a problem. The interior was very familiar looking and there were signs everywhere in English, so we were very surprised to find that the heavy plastic-coated menu was totally in Japanese. It turns out it is basically a "theme" restaurant, and the theme is "American family style." The food and everything else was Japanese!



Aleeza had Rice and Miso soup, Benna had French Fries - but with Mayonaise, Japanese style! (Later we asked for plain Ketchup and they brought it happily.) I had a Korean dish - Kimchee Udon, it was OK but by now I am pretty spoiled with the delicious mountain noodle dishes we have been treated to over the past few weeks.



Today was the special day of fun we had planned for the kids and ourselves, for the last day of our travels. The place we went to is called "Nagashima Spaland" and I didn't take a lot of pictures because we were too busy having fun. Here is Aleeza in front of some of the rides.


The amusement park had about eight roller coasters of different sizes, including the "White Cyclone" which is one of the longest wooden coasters in the world, and the Steel Dragon which is one of the tallest and fastest coasters in the world. (Aleeza and I rode both of those!)

There were of course a million other rides, including the "BobKart," which was a cool motorized alpine-slide type of ride that I have never seen before and may never see again because I think it is unique.

Then there was the water park, which was a thing to behold. There were two "lazy river" rides, about ten slide towers with multiple tubes, making a total of around fifty individual slides. The kiddie "splash park" itself was worth the trip, but it was only a small corner of the water park! There was a large indoor splash park too that we never even went to! We stayed until the place closed at 6pm and they kicked us out. But we still hadn't visited even half the water attractions!

What a day. We then had to catch a bus, then two trains, and we finally dragged ourselves through Kyoto Station at nearly ten o'clock and got into a taxi. Then the stress came to a head when it became clear that the driver couldn't make sense of the address we had given him! He drove us to a nearby place we described to him and we got out. The kids were tired and hungry and incredulous that the driver "couldn't find the apartment" but they can't understand that in Japan there are no "street addresses" like back home. They were about to cry, so I asked a clerk at a corner store for help, and he pointed me to the building next door which was a "police box." The officer inside cheerfully showed me a map, and it turned out we were only two streets away from the apartment.

Now we are at the apartment where we will stay for the remainder of our time in Japan. It was an amazing three weeks of travel. I will probably not blog as much now that we are staying out, but I'll try to put some stories and pictures about life in Kyoto a few times a week at least.

Peace y'all!

- Aaron