Time Limited to Three of Three Things

As I had Japanese class this morning, I had a late start to the day but I didn’t want to prevent my schedule from interfering with Joanna’s family’s ability to see the rest of Kyoto on our last full day here.

I haven’t been sleeping great, woke up at 6am and failed to go back to sleep. Had to finish my homework before class at 9am. Was able to get it done and then get my favorite cheap Japanese breakfast at Sukiya.

All of this food was only $4.50: grilled horse mackerel, fermented soybeans (natto) which is a VERY acquired taste as it is very slimy, pickled greens, miso soup, and rice with a raw egg. This place is notorious for serving their food quickly so I started my stopwatch the moment I put my order in through the touchpad. They literally delivered my food within 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

Joanna’s dad saw this sign near our hotel and got really excited. I think he was hitting a Japanese food wall and wanted to eat something familiar again which I don’t blame him for. Last time we were in Japan we got pasta a bunch of times because we got tired of the briny, umami, and pickled notes of Japanese food. I said we could split up dinner plans tonight and I would take him to get Vietnamese food but I wanted to temper his expectations that it’s likely not going to be the best Vietnamese meal he’s ever had.

I sent a group chat later in the morning so they could decide on today’s activities: So there’s 3 things we could do today but enough time to do them all
-Nishiki market
-Bamboo forest
-Gion

Random shopping will be at the end of the day after dark with ichiran ramen/Vietnamese food
Which activity does the group want to do most?

Considering Joanna’s parents spent their entire adult lives working in restaurants, they know and value good food. I wanted to show them Nishiki Market to get out the various food stalls and shops.

My hot take on Kyoto is that the Arashiyama bamboo forest is OVERRATED. It’s packed full of tourists, they don’t let you use a tripod, and the sides of the road are covered with tall 6 ft grass fences so you can’t even get near the bamboo for a decent picture. I wanted to check out a buddhist temple much closer near downtown Kyoto and added that to the list.

Joanna, Vianna, and I went to Gion the day before but because the ground was pure ice, it was so early that the shops weren’t open yet, and we were only going there to take pictures, it didn’t make sense for the entire group to be there together. I agreed that we’d return as a group later on.

We got to Nishiki market at a pretty busy time of the day. Ideally you want to go right when they open at 10 but we didn’t get there until 1pm and the tight alleyway was packed with people. We let the group wander for a bit until they got sick of the crowds. I stopped and got a fried sesame bun with beef curry inside. It was food.

After that I rushed the group onto a bus to get to Kōdaiji Temple Bamboo Forest before they closed at 5pm. We arrived with half an hour to spare and thankfully the staff said they stop taking new people at 5pm but don’t kick people out until 5:30. As we are short on time, it just didn’t make sense to make the trek out to Arashiyama. Visiting the bamboo forest here at the temple cost 600 yen which is about how much the round trip train would have cost. It’s also a half day’s walk which the group probably didn’t have the energy for either.

Half an hour was the right amount of time to take advantage of golden hour to get some pics in with the bamboo in the background.

We wrapped up with pictures and left the temple grounds before it got too dark. I noticed on google maps that Gion was within a 5 min walk from where we were. Christina pointed out to me that I made a mistake in my text. I meant to say “there’s 3 things we could do today but NOT enough time to do them all” but I forgot the ‘not’ which didn’t matter in the end because we were actually able to cram all the activities into today’s schedule.

Joanna’s mom wanted to visit Gion because it’s featured in all the Hong Kong travel shows. I’m glad we were able to get her there for pictures and to check out the shops without risk to her physical well being of ice covering the streets.

Now it was time for dinner! If you haven’t noticed, our travel schedule is strongly food motivated with activities sprinkled between meals. Christina, Vianna, and Aaron went to Ichiran Ramen while Joanna and I took her parents to get Vietnamese food.

Again, we had to temper expectations and remind him that it would be hard to be the best restaurants we’ve curated back at home as we have a large Vietnamese population in Minneapolis.

Spoiler alert: the food was not very good and it was expensive. Two Bánh xèo ($25), Fried spring rolls ($8), Bánh khọt ($9), Bánh cuốn ($3.5)

I could tell from Joanna’s dad’s face that he was disappointed and still hungry. I suggested we go to Torizoku next door since I totally botched it as our first meal in Tokyo.

The cabbage in sesame oil vinaigrette was all you can eat, we also got marinated cucumbers, grilled steak skewers, chicken thighs and green onions in teriyaki sauce, and something that caught my eye were this plate of fried “chicken cartilage”. I thought no way was it fried wishbones. They were in fact a plate of fried chicken wishbones. What a clever way of using up scrap that normally would be thrown away. It was nicely seasoned and very crispy.

I think dinner part 2 was a definite success and made up for my miss on night 1.