casey comes to town, part 3

the morning after my birthday casey and I hopped a train for Kyoto. ok, well it wasn’t morning, but we did manage to drag our hungover bodies to the station in time to make the 12:05. we arrived in time to find our hotel, peruse the travel book and head to pontocho alley, a once-famous geisha district that now houses only a few teahouses where these classical entertainers work. there are tons of restaurants though. some have English menus posted, but i was able to make out quite a few of them that were only Japanese; enough to give us an idea of what cuisine we’d find inside. we settled on zu-zu, a Japanese style place i’d read about.

the atmosphere was perfect; rustic and well-lit. the food was delicious and was a welcome break from strict Japanese fare with twists like shrimp and avocado spring rolls with cod roe sauce, iron skillet fried sweet potatoes and a gooey concoction of fishcakes and vegetables that was tasty, albeit snot-like, and is apparently a Kyoto original.
afterwards we found our way to a couple more bars before stumbling on a dance club where we whiled the night away.
the next day we were out by midday and looking for sandwiches [which are scarce around here. see the post on cravings]. we settled for ton-katsu, a traditional deep fried pork dish.

i opted to pay a little more for the 'kirei' version, which means clean or less fatty. the fried delight was paired perfectly with an all-you-can-eat trio of cabbage salad, clam-heavy miso soup and rice. it's the closest thing to a fried pork chop i've put in my mouth in forever, and you all know those breaded chops hold a special place in my heart.
the restaurant, along with several department stores, a theater, lots of cafes and the bus station, was in Kyoto train station. its contemporary architecture has met with mixed reviews as it is definitely a break from the traditional Japanese style.

this is a deli in part of the station. i would be oh-so-excited if we could get anything remotely like this in joetsu.

we hopped on some bikes and headed to higashi-hongan temple. the structure itself was beautiful and austere although half of it was under renovation. this site is the head of the jodo-shinshu [true pure land] sect of Buddhism.


one of the oddest sites was this rope…made of the hair of believers…huh?!?


the courtyard was covered with pigeons who proved to be less than exciting to this man hawking hato mame, or pigeon beans.


then we rode to nishiki market, which sells all the usual oddities [that phrase is such a paradox, but i feel like that is truly what these foods are to me after being here for a year] but also things which are native to Kyoto and are essential in their cuisine.


he’s drying and grinding tea leaves which gave his block of the market a wonderful smell. i bet his wife doesn't feel quite the same way when he comes home reeking every night.

we were stuck in this area for hours as the rain was pouring down relentlessly and umbrellas were really useless. later we made it to teramachi, which means temple street. it’s a covered shopping/praying district with tons of boutiques, Japanese candy stores and temples.

on to hokanji temple, home of the famous 5-tier pagoda which was rebuilt for the last time in 1436, i think. unfortunately the damn place was closed, luckily it’s a tall pagoda surrounded by a moderately low fence…

we were over being soaked to the skin and returned to the hotel for a shower and dry clothes. we caught the train back downtown and moseyed around gion, the geisha district, looking for eats. i was eager to explore this conclave in the wake of reading 'memoirs of a geisha'. that novel was phenomenal and piqued my interest in the geisha era. i was also interested in reconciling the information in the book with actual spots in kyoto. what a dork.

we discovered it’s more seedy bars and high class entertainment spots where foreigners aren’t so welcome. we definitely witnessed an altercation between yakuza factions [if there actually are factions]. several men, dressed well in black, expensive suits, gathered around a really nice hummer [which are rare here in the land of mini cars] heatedly exchanging words. it was intense enough that we crossed to the other sidewalk to avoid the scene. we rounded the block back to pontocho and stumbled upon a narrow, trendy restaurant just as we were about to collapse from hunger. my face here does not reflect my mood.

it was a great mix of Japanese and foreign food. we had prosciutto and camembert spring rolls, oden [a Kyoto specialty that is vegetables and fish cakes boiled in a fish and kelp broth], sashimi and a delicious scallop and asparagus stir fry. we questioned the bar keep about any dance clubs and some other customers came to the rescue, suggesting a reggae club nearby. they were nice enough to leave there plates, walk us to the tiny closet of a club, about 10 minutes away, and stay there for a drink with us. when we were warmed up and ready to tear up the dance floor, we decided to move on to a bigger club I’d read about. out on the street we attempted to get into taxi after taxi, but every driver politely waved us off saying they didn’t know the place. finally we asked a lovely couple on the street who flagged down a cab and gave detailed directions to the spot. it was in the basement of a 7-11, no wonder no one knew the locale. the place was packed and the music was an electronic, house-y, Nintendo-y dance-y hybrid.
up early the next day to check out of the hotel, arrange casey’s train tickets for the trip back to the airport and stash our bags at the station. there was an exhibit of drawings done by survivors of the atomic bomb attacks.

they instantly inspired an uncomfortable feeling in me…I felt embarrassed to be an American and a bit ashamed that I don’t know more of the details from that unfortunate period of world history. just then 2 girls approached asking if I was American. I said, “no, I’m Canadian.” only kidding. they were looking for Americans to interview about gay rights. with my open-minded opinions, I wonder how much of an outlier I was in their survey.
shot from the station.

then we were off to hunt a Mexican restaurant we’d seen the day before. wouldn’t you know that when we finally tracked that sucker down it turned out to be a dinner only establishment. we settled for sandwiches and pizza from a coffee shop where I am convinced some young yakuza were lounging in the corner still drunk and rowdy from the night before. it was 2 pm. we wound our way through the city streets, some residential, some commercial areas, finally arriving at the imperial gardens and palace. you can only tour it with a reservation and the pouring rain had kept the crowds away from the well-tended grounds. it was a bit eerie for casey and i to be virtually alone in the company of such an ancient and massive structure. this is one of the original, giant gates.

we walked the banks of the river for a daytime view of the famous geisha district.



I saw this figure outside of a gion okonomiyakiya [veggie pancake restaurant] and it nearly took my breath away.

I knew instantly that I had been there before, with the host family that so graciously welcomed me to japan 10 years ago. I peeked my head inside and noticed the table where we had sat. all these memories came flooding back- what we ate and drank, how we were arranged at the table. it’s so amazing to think how memories are encoded and stored in your brain in such a way that a minute catalyst can send them rushing forward from the recesses, with clarity that would make you think it had occurred the previous week.
casey and I returned to the station where he boarded the 9:30 train bound for Tokyo. amazing how familiar and comfortable it felt to see a friend, but it was also refreshing and interesting since we’ve recently collected so many disparate experiences to share with each other. I had opted for the cheap, overnight train back home so I had 3 more hours to kill. I traipsed back to the Mexican restaurant we’d found for some tacos and time with my book. I meandered back to the station and ultimately back to my town. arriving at 6:30 am, just in time to shower and ready myself for a day at work.