Throughout my time in Japan, I was without a cellphone. The networks are completely different, so my cell couldn’t roam in Japan. It felt like I had traveled back about ten years. It is possible to rent a cell phone at the airport, but it still leaves the problem of actually being able to communicate with whomever I’d call since most Japanese don’t speak English. I knew my parents plane had been delayed due to an electrical problem, and I had no idea when they would actually arrive in Kyoto. I ended up just chilling in the hotel room because I was still dragging a little from karaoke. My parents finally made it to the hotel just after 9 pm, and we immediately went out for dinner. The concierge recommended a local okonomiyaki restaurant. I had eaten at one earlier in the week for the first time in my life. A common description is a Japanese pizza, but it’s more of a pancake. There’s a batter, cabbage, noodles, maybe some egg, squid or pork. There’s a number of variations, similar to different toppings on a pizza. They’re served on a hot plate that’s set into the table. They were very good, and it hit the spot that night. We were all tired, and it just felt like we were eating Japanese comfort food in a small restaurant. We called it an early night, ready for our first big day of exploring.

Unfortunately, our first big day was met with rain. Not a big storm or anything, just the persistent rain the hovers around and can completely ruin the day. It didn’t ruin ours, but we didn’t get to check out any temples. Instead, we headed indoors for shopping. But first, we had breakfast at the hotel. They had an Eastern and Western style buffet. I wasn’t in the mood for pickles and salted fish, so I went the Western route. I wasn’t too impressed with the buffet, but I could say that for any Western style food I had there (except the gelato, that was good). As an example, none of the pastries I had could match what you could get at a Starbuck’s in the US. That’s a pretty low bar. However, I’m sure Japanese visiting the US feel the same way about a lot of Japanese restaurants here.

After breakfast, we headed down to some of the covered arcades near downtown Kyoto. We wandered around and checked out a few shops. I bought some nice chopsticks, as well as a new hat. The hat is not a baseball cap. I’m not sure what the proper name is, but Alex said it looks like something Gavin DeGraw would wear. I would guess Tanner would refer to it as capri pants for the head. Whatever. I like it. After walking to the end of the arcade, we found the Nishiki market. It’s the big food market for Kyoto. We walked through about half of it and saw a bunch of weird stuff. I’m not sure how else to describe anything because I’m really not sure what everything was. We did find a Japanese cooking store, where I realized how seriously the Japanese take their knives. At a Williams-Sonoma, there’s always the one knife case with Wusthoff, Henkels, Global, and maybe Shun. At this store, there was an entire WALL of knives, ranging in price from 7,000 yen all the way up to 50,000 yen. I drooled. I thought about buying one, but everything I looked at was $250 or higher. We walked back to the arcade, ate some noodles, then trekked over to Gion. For those that have read the novel or seen the movie, Gion is the setting for Memoirs of a Geisha. Gion seemed like a very interesting area, but it was late and none of the temples were open. We gave into the rain and our tired feet and took a cab back to the hotel.

For dinner, we went out to Hamyco, a somewhat traditional Japanese restaurant in downtown Kyoto. We went with the set Kaiseki menu. I took pictures of all the courses, so if you’re curious as to what a kaiseki meal may look like, check it out. There were some interesting dishes, including a gelatinous soup with a rice cake at the bottom. I have mixed feelings about Japanese food, although that probably comes from my Western tastes. Like Umesh warned me, upscale Japanese food can be really good, or really bad. I think all the set menus left me somewhat disappointed.  I enjoyed eating at some of the low end places, like Ichi Ban, more than nicer ones.  After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and called it a night.  We would need the rest.  The next day was going to be filled with temples and a trip to Nara.