Kyoto - The Other Bits

Arashiyama - a bamboo lined path which has to be seen to be believed. 

Returning to Japan after a 10 year hiatus, I've been, at times, overwhelmed with sheer nostalgia. I'll be the first to admit that the overwhelming feeling that I just attributed to nostalgia is as much due to having to navigate complicated cities, and having to translate for an English speaking girlfriend in a language I've not used in over 10 years.

Fushimi inari shrine - a torii lined path up a mountain. A highlight so far. 

Nevertheless, sharing a place which I hold so dear to me, with a person whom I hold even more so dear to me has been wonderfully refreshing to say the least. Though famed for its peerless concentration of significant cultural monuments, to focus solely on this fact would be doing Kyoto an injustice. Kyoto's rich history of Zen culture, countless gardens and temples (some of which date back to 780AD), and sheer number of UNESCO world heritage sites can leave you feeling bewildered when it comes to where to begin. For us, we focused on the important sites which somehow resonated with us. After which we sought some sort of cultural enlightenment through food. Personally I was also eager to revisit some of my sorely missed and favourite pastimes of Japan.

Kiyomizu-dera - expertly perched on a hill. This temple was founded in 778.

Ginkakuji - stunning gardens, a classic Japanese temple.

Ever since my cultural submersion in Japan as a 15 year old I've had a penchant for green tea. I'm one of those people, aside from drinking a daily dose of the verdant drop, that genuinely gets excited by green tea flavoured...anything. I'm pretty hardcore – I know. Anyhow, where was I? Green, I love it. So when I heard that about the oldest green tea shop in Kyoto, which itself been in existence for over 300 years, I politely requested that Julia join me in checking it out.

Ippodo tea shop - the source of much pain and happiness.

Walking in, the pungent green tea aroma was nearly too much for this maccha (green tea in Japanese) lover. After baulking at the prices, we happened upon their adjacent tea house. At the tea house, although no money exchanges hands, the ideas is that you can try an expertly prepared cup of whatever it is you think you have an inkling to buy. When I also heard that a traditional Japanese sweet accompanied said cup of tea, I was already warming our seats before Julia had a chance to decipher the sheer variety of offerings.

Confidently I ordered their strongest and finest drop. Julia as a relative maccha novice, sensibly ordered the weakest most reasonably priced maccha. Excitedly I waited, filling in the silence with stories of how much I love green tea and how much I drink on a weekly basis. Once I'd run out of things to say I left Julia, and made my way over to the kitchen area and observed and photographed the performance that was taking place.

Anko -  a Japanese sweet made of red beans. 

Maccha - beautiful in colour, not so in taste.

Houjicha - another variety of green tea where the leaves are roasted.

Finally our drinks arrived. Notice that I refrained from using the word tea. Before me was a thick, dark moss coloured concoction that I wasn't possibly supposed to drink. Upon swirling the cup in my hands the liquid; or solid, whatever it was, begrudgingly moved from one side of the cup to other, much like you'd imagine a sloth moving from one side of a room to another. Now my excitement and expectations where replaced with trepidation as I cautiously sipped my first mouthful. WOW, the flavour was worse than it's appearance. The strongest tasting, strangely sour green mud I'd ever consumed. In fact the only green mud I'd ever consumed. I should clarify, I've never consumed any mud. Of any variety.

Regardless, the experience was just that – an experience. Painful for my taste buds and it turns out unnecessarily painful for my bank account too. I should disclose that I did end up buying some tea, sheepishly buying one of their weakest varieties.

I won't leave you on that sour note, so to speak. In keeping with the culinary delights of Kyoto we visited one of the oldest restaurants in the city. Honke Owariya, a Japanese soba restaurant which has been in operation since 1465, over 549 years of tradition under one roof – truly incredible and quite mind boggling for two young 25 year old travellers whose own country was 'discovered' by Captain Cook in a paltry 1788. At that time, Honke Owariya had already been serving customers for a modest 323 years. Again, incredible.

Honke Owariya - in operation since before your grandparents were born.

Frequented by the imperial family during their sojourns to the ancient capital, we were very excited to be going to a restaurant of such esteem. While not quite haute in a gastronomic sense, in reputation and bragging rights alone it was up there. As with most dining experiences in Japan, we were greeted with a warm welcome both by the staff, and, being winter, the comfort of a well heated venue. We were ushered up a narrow and small stair case and couldn't help but imagine the huge amount of history that has passed up it over the centuries. We felt somewhat under dressed as we sat down next to a slurping table of business men. Regardless, we feasted our eyes on the menu and settled for the traditional cold soba, as well as another warm dish.

Soba, for those of you who haven’t tasted it before, is made from a type of a seed known as buckwheat. The name 'buckwheat' is deceptive as it's not a type of wheat at all. However, it's considered a very healthy and nutritious grain. I recommend anybody getting their hands on a pack next time they are at the supermarket. It cooks in a matter of minutes, can easily be substituted for pastas or used in stir fries, again is very nutritious but most importantly it's bloody delicious.

While we waited for our soba dishes we warmed our yet to be acclimatised winter bodies with plentiful amounts of tea. Soon enough our meals arrived and we were treated to a delectable and faultless array of soba goodness. Accompanying the cold soba dish was a helping of freshly grated wasabi root. Yes that's right wasabi doesn't just come in small plastic tube with green food colouring. The freshly grated root is somewhat less intense with a more refined but short lived flavour. The fresh wasabi, chopped shallots, soba sauce combined with the fault less noodles in an elegant and awe inspiring way. To top the meal off, you are bought the water in which the soba noodles were boiled. This is simply added to the soba sauces you have just used, resulting in a pleasant warm soup. For me, soba and its accompaniments are yet another reminder of the supreme Japanese skill at matching simple yet bold flavours to create distinctly unique dishes. After being blown away equally by our meals as much as the setting in which we sat, we parted with $20 for the both of us, leaving the restaurant far the richer in nearly every sense.  

Soba - the quintessential cold soba dish. 

This warm dish was perfect for our weary winter bodies.

Nanzenji - a path leading to a sub temple in the sprawling grounds.   

Kinkakuji - the famed and much revered 'Golden Temple.' Simply breathtaking. 

Kyoto: Getting to the Heart of Japan

Youkoso. Jay and I have jet-setted off to Japan and we're so excited about this trip. Jay lived in Japan for 10 months when he did a school-exchange trip here 10 years ago and has been itching to return ever since. I've heard so many fun and quirky stories about it from Jay and have been just as eager to visit and experience it all for myself.

Our first stop was Kyoto, considered the cultural heart of Japan. Renowned for its vast amounts of temples, gardens, shrines, and (if you're lucky enough to see them) geisha, this was a wonderfully fitting and enriching introduction to Japan.

We stayed at a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. The pictures and accompanying captions below detail what an incredibly unique and memorable stay it was.

The front of our ryokan, Kikokuso Lodging

 

Our room, complete with tatami-mat flooring, futon, shoji screens...

...and a beautiful sitting area overlooking a Japanese garden below.

Ready for our traditional Japanese breakfast...

...including rice, tofu, egg, miso soup, green tea and a variety of pickled vegetables. Not for the faint-hearted.

Jay and I wearing our yukata (casual summer kimono)

At the end of the day we bathed the traditional Japanese way. The bathing room contained a shower area where we cleansed ourselves with soap, rinsed ourselves off, and then hopped into the bath pictured above. It was the perfect way to wind down after each arduous day of walking around and exploring Kyoto.  

Staying at the ryokan was a truly special experience, and one which I highly recommend to anyone visiting Kyoto with the opportunity to do so.

Keen to get a true 'taste' of Kyoto, we visited the four hundred year-old Nishiki Market on our first day there. It's a bustling hub selling many of Kyoto's specialties, including - but certainly not limited to - vegetables, pickles, dried fish and a ridiculous variety of tofu (including tofu donuts. Before you ask, yes, they were delicious).

Nishiki Market

An assortment of vegetables commonly used in Japanese cuisine. Note that they are all individually packaged, including the carrots.

Tsukemono, pickled vegetables

Mochi, glutenised rice balls dipped in a sweet paste. Positively delicious.

Bonito fish, which is commonly shaved and served on top of vegetables or rice.

Fishy fish

More fishy fish

So much tea

With this being my first visit to Japan, and my first proper introduction to Japanese culture, I've obviously learnt a lot over my initial few days here. I'll now share some of my new-found pieces of wisdom with you:

1. Shoes. You have to change them, a lot. And it's not just about taking them off when you enter a house (or in our case, a ryokan). Once inside, there will be a pair of slippers you put on to walk around the residence in. If there are tatami mats in a room, you will have to take off the slippers before entering it*. And in some cases, there will be another pair of slippers you will have to change into when entering a bathroom. So far the most amount of shoe/slipper changes in one location have happened at a temple we visited: there were 4.

2. Vending machines. You can buy warm drinks from them. I don't mean ones where you buy a cup, put it onto a tray, and hot liquid pours into it; I've seen those ones often enough. The ones I'm talking about here look like you're purchasing an ordinary plastic bottle of drink. Except that when you open it, steam comes out of it because it actually contains a heated beverage. Wowzas.

3. Free tastings are commonly offered in food stores. For example, in the image pictured below, green tea was offered to prospective customers upon entry to the shop. And it wasn't just a token small portion that would otherwise leave you craving for more. Instead, it was a proper, real-world serving of tea. But it didn't finish there. Once inside the store, tastings were available for most of the varieties of sweets sold there. As with the green tea tastings, these were generous sized servings, to the point that we left the store quite full. So technically, if you wanted to be super stingy, you could just visit a few shops and fill yourself up on the variety of tastings in them. I'm still getting over how amazing this is.

4. Traffic light sounds. Some chirp like birds when they turn green.

5. Toilets. Buttons like the ones pictured below are on the sides of some toilets. I haven't been game enough to press any of them yet, but who knows what will happen over my next couple of weeks here.

There's just so much to say about Kyoto that I couldn't possibly fit it all into one blog without overwhelming you. So stay tuned to hear about more of our Kyotan adventures.

Arigato gozaimasu.

* confession: I've forgotten to do so at times