JordanPachal.ca ...Just Me, Myself and I...

Day 8 - July 28...As we didn't arrive into Kyoto until late the night before, today will be our first true day in Kyoto.  We had heard along the way that it was supposed to be rainy and stormy in Kyoto, so I was not surprised to wake up to rain.  We spoke to Tanveer and June in the morning and found out that they had woken up a little bit before and had gone to a coffee shop and recommended if we wanted a nice simple breakfast of either sandwiches or a simple curry that we go there.

After getting ready we went to the Coffee Shop (named Coffee Club) for breakfast and Tanveer and June went for a walk to find a temple near the hotel.  The shop was run by an old man and had a great atmosphere, jazz music music playing in the background and we believe his wife prepared the food in the back.  Jaime had a rice and curry dish, and Michael and myself had ham and egg sandwiches which were complete with wasabi mayonnaise.  We then watched him prepare Jaime's coffee.  He put some water into a beaker above a burner and put another beaker on top which contained coffee grinds and a tube that went into the water in the lower beaker.  As the water heated up, the pressure in the bottom caused the water to raise up through the top beaker and soak into the coffee grinds.  He then took it off of the flame and as the air cooled in the bottom beaker a vacuum effect was created at the coffee was pulled back into the bottom beaker leaving just the liquid coffee in the bottom beaker.  It was fun to watch and it was the best cup of coffee Jaime has had in Japan so far.

Tanveer and June returned to the coffee shop so we could start our day so we went back to hotel to prepare.  Michael wasn't feeling well enough to come with us for the day so Jaime, Tanveer, June and I grabbed umbrellas from the guest desk.  The concierge recommended we take the hotel shuttle to the second stop of Shijo-Ichi station which would be near our destination.  We followed his directions and ended up at Shijo station which on our map showed us quite a ways away from our destination.  We started walking, hoping that it wouldn't be too far, but after walking for a while we decided to turn back to where the shuttle stop was in the hopes we would be able to get a ride to Shijo-Ichi station.  When the hotel shuttle showed up, he told us that he only stopped at Shijo station and would not allow us back onto the shuttle.

We decided to get on the subway and make our way to Shijo-Ichi station.  When we left the subway June was getting a bit hungry and Jaime had found a coffee shop called "Amazon" near the station.  We looked at the menu outside and saw an item called "Honey Toast" which looked delicious so we decided to go in.  All four of us ended up having Honey Toast and it was one of the best food items we have had so far.  It was very thick toast with the whole soft center of the bread cut out leaving the outside shell of the crust.  The inside of the crust was buttered and the soft center bread was cut into cubes and arranged in the crust.  The whole thing was then drizzled with honey, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and some whipped cream and then chocolate sauce was drizzled overtop of everything.  If it sounds good, it's because it was.

We continued on to SanJuSan Gozen temple.  The temple was incredible and consisted of a long main hall filled with a large main Kannon statue in the center and flanked by 500 smaller (human height) statues on each side.  Then there were 28 deity statues along the front which had plaques in front of them explaining their significance.  Walking through the hall was incredible and invoked a real sense of awe and amazement just thinking about the amount of work involved in constructing that many statues.

We continued along through the torrential rain, and by this time it was becoming quite a joke, because every time we went into a building it stopped raining, and when we came out the rains continued.  Our next stop was a temple that contained a beautiful waterfall behind it, so we started making our way.  We were following the map through some of the back roads of Kyoto which we found to be much more amazing and more indicative of Japan than the streets we wandered through in Tokyo.  Along the way, we walked past a store which had a glass front and saw two Geishas sitting in the window getting their pictures taken.  We wandered over to take a closer look and hopefully get some pictures taken, when one of the Geishas spoke to us in perfect english "Do you want to take some pictures with us?"  After being taken aback by the english, we spoke to them for a bit and took a few pictures and found out that one of the girls was born in Singapore, lives in Hong Kong, and they were actually just visiting Japan currently and the store we were at was where you could pay for the chance to be dressed up and get professional pictures taken.

We continued to the waterfall temple (in the rain of course) and were at the temple a few minutes later.  It was getting quite late in the day so unfortunately although we were able to wander through the main temple at the entrance gate, the path to the waterfall above the temple was closed off.  We were able to go down a set of stairs to the cleansing fountain.  This fountain was interesting as it was the first one we had seen that contained UV sterilizing lights for the ladles.

At this point we were sick of being wet and our feet were ready to stop walking so we started making our way back to our hotel.  We caught the appropriate trains back to our hotel and started planning for dinner.  When we arrived back in our hotel room Michael was there and had just returned a little while ago from wandering around the area around the hotel.  We decided that tonight we would have a nice dinner in one of the hotel restaurants.  The decision was made to go to Aqua Blue which was a nice buffet style restaurant.  As the package deal we had at the Westin Hotel through the Friends and Family rate, we also received coupons for 50% off the bill at the restaurants in the hotel.  This effectively turned the delicious $48.00 meals we had, into just as delicious $24.00 meals which was much better.  It consisted of a salad bar, a couple curries, a few different sliced meat in sauce selections and you could request steaks and pasta from the chef.  For the dessert menu it was a selection of mousses, cheesecakes, and a dessert chef who's selection of the night was gelato concoctions with fresh fruit and topped with liqueur.

Shortly after dinner, Jaime and Michael went up to bed, and June went to go have a bath to soak her sore shoulder so Tanveer and I sat for another almost hour just chatting.  Once we were done, we went off to bed.  By this time I just know that the next day is going to hold another day of craziness so we need to be rested.

- Jordan