Today I found out totally by chance (while browsing for things to do) WHY Kyoto is so freaking crowded. Japan relaxed Visa requirements for a number of overseas countries in Asia and South America and now all those folks want to get a taste of good old Japan, too. I understand that, really. But the bad part is that they just do the same itineraries as all the other guided tourists, both domestic and foreign, And that explains the people tsunamis in the spots. Since I have been to Asakusa and Skytree (both in Tokyo) in 2019 I didn't even go near there this time, but I am pretty sure, that there is the same effect happening.
Regardless, today started out with rain. Luckily only a small front. The northwest of Japan was hit horribly. They had to evacuate over 30.000 people and some of the cities and towns are essentially under water now.
I went out after the rain in Kyoto let up and went to the Kyoto Aquarium. This is a relatively small aquarium targeted at local school children and without large attractions. Didn't matter, queue was gigantic. Mostly families with children, so the actual target audience. Oh well, what now? The Aquarium is at the entrance to the Umekoji park, which is not really a tourist magnet and so Japanese kids were playing football, some families seemed to do a picnic, nice vibes. I found at least one corner which asked to be taken as a photograph:
On the other side they had 2 train cars as a teaser for the nearby train museum. But I'm not THAT much into trains and wasn't yet desperate enough to enter it.
This one was strange. It advertised itself as some kind of garden with a an educational part for different biotopes in Japan. Sounded interesting, was an official thing, so dirt cheap (200 Yen) but... Inside it was a low budget family restaurant and I was unable to fund anyone to pay the entrance fee to and after a couple of minute gave up searching and left. Only some of the PR material in front of it was partly English. I am pretty sure I missed the all important signs about the system inside, because they were handwritten Kanji. But the building and what I could see of the garden were very nice. A shame all in all that I didn't find the proper entrance.
At the end of the park, where the railway museum is located, is also the JR Umekoji train station. I searched a bit and found out that I can go to Nijo and Arashiyama from there. Neat! Not Nijo though. Unesco world heritage site and number 3 or so of the "MUST DO" for every group itinerary. But Arashiyama and beyond sounded nice.
So I entered the north bound train and found out the hard way that the Navitime app I am using for finding train connections needs an update. It had the trains all wrong and I didn't get where I wanted to, which was Hozukyo but the train terminated in Saga Arashiyama.
Some pictures from the trip. As you can see the weather is still grey, so everything looks a bit dull and shitty, also I missed some of the best bits like golden roofs. I hoped to get a glance at Nijo castle from the train, but no luck...
Kyoto is surrounded by Mountains on three sides. Only the south in direction of Osaka is open,
The clouds were hanging so deep that the touched the (not very high) mountains in some places.
Saga Arashiyama. From here you can do a lot of hiking tours, visit a famous bamboo grove, some temples and shrines in the mountains and! you can do a scenic train ride with a special train.
Which I will do tomorrow. Booked the ticket online. Tomorrow should be at least partly sunny, so I hope for a breathtaking experience like in Kyushu in 2019. The teaser pictures in the stations where promising and the look and feel around Arashiyama did nothing to stain that image. On the way back I want to visit the Toei Studio, but I could be out of luck since a lot of museums are closed on Mondays.
Back in Kyoto station I was pretty near to my hotel entrance which is nice, so I don't need to run around and search tomorrow. And just by chance I found ANOTHER freaking shopping mall and restaurant area in the station. There must be like 40 or 50 of them. Add to that at least 20 specialized stores for hand crafted sweets. And some bakeries. One had sourdough rolls and I couldn't resist. Walnut + Citrus.
I should have removed the wrapping for the pic, so you have to believe my that it was a proper sourdough roll with the typical little blisters. The whould dough was mixed with little citrus pieces and a citrus peel (probably yuzu) and filled with a walnut paste. It was delcious.
Unlike the Pizza I tried next in an "Italian restaurant". It wasn't awful, it was just not good, but edible. I read good things about Japanese chefs learning to make real pizza in Naples, but this venue obviously didn't employ one of them or at least one of their apprentices. At least the Margarita had only Tomato, Mozarella and fresh basil, as it should be. The Sake they recommended to the pizza was excellent, though.
After that I relaxed a bit in my room and tried to find a venue for the evening. After the Pizza and the roll I wasn't really hungry, so I researched places to eat Wagyu, I happily went out and through the whole freaking station to the north side and crossed some dungeons under the streets of Kyoto and THEN I found out that I had left my wireless WLAN hotspot in my room. Great, no maps.
But a nice view of Kyoto tower (it was near dark, IPhone lighting up the world again).
I wandered in the general direction and found a district with a lot of restaurants.
Which were all full.
Or on a reservation only scheme.
One really beautiful high end place would have given me a seat at the counter, but I couldn't sit there. It was a traditional Japanese seating, something like low cushions and a lower section for your legs. I just couldn't fit into there. All the tables were reserved though and I left. If the food there is only half as good as the place is visually stunning (it is like a Zen garden on several layers in the house, hard to describe but really impressive) I had a hard loss tonight.
I wandered around a bit more and had lost the way then. I thought I knew the general direction of the station still, but I was nit sure.
I finally found a Vietnamese restaurant in a Daiwa Roynet hotel (the chain I booked in Hachinohe) and they had a lot of space. Which is not necessarily a bad sign, but mostly it is and in this case it was.
It's again high level complaining. The food was definitely better than the pseudo Vietnamese/Thai Asia fast food stuff you get in Germany, but not by that much. It was all a bit bland, lacked spices. I have no pic of the summer roll unfortunately. It had white shrimp and pork. With a bit more spice and better coriander it could have been good,
Those are fried spring rolls. They were ok, but the presentation is low standard for Japan. The drink in the middle was the only thing which was positively horrible. It is a coriander Mojito. I like coriander and I think it could work in a Mojito. But not this coriander and not with this rum. I ordered the fries mainly for the "fresh coriander mayo". Seems they used another potted plant for that, since it was actually nice, The fries themselves were mediocre. Whole salad leaved are btw. not the best thing to eat with chopsticks.
And one grilled pork (minced) wrapped around a lemon grass stalk and with some salad thron haphazardly onto the plate. The meat was good. The salad was forgettable and the presentation again substandard.
When leaving I mad some wrong turns yet again and definitely had no idea about the directions anymore (it was also completely dark now). I had to walk quite a bit to find a bigger street and was lucky that an empty Taxi drove by a few minutes later.
I really hope tomorrow is a bit smoother.
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