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Chris’ mom arrived in Kobe on Wednesday August 8th. We went to a little okonomiyaki place. Okonomiyaki is a special Japanese dish which is often compared with a pancake. However, it tastes and looks nothing like a pancake, so I’m not sure why that comparison is used. It’s made with Cabbage, Egg, meat (usually pork I think) and some special okonomiyaki sauce. I think it tasted good, but nothing to brag about. I have to be honest in that so far of all the food Japanese and other Gaijin living in Japan have said, “oh, you have to try this – it’s so good” I haven’t been all that impressed. I don’t think I have tasted anything horrible, but nothing to die for.

Anyway, we wasted no time. The next day we left for Kyoto to go visit a different city. The last time Annie (Chris’ mom) was in Japan, she went to Kyoto and really enjoyed it. I think it was a different time of year, because this weather is miserable for sight seeing. So hot. I think some of the days we were out, it reached above 100F and the humidity was pretty high too. So we stayed in a cute little Ryokan (Japanese style hotel). They had a nice room for 3 people so we took it. Of course, we slept on Futons. A few little touches that I thought were really cute include: them showing us around the hotel – where the bathrooms were – Japanese style and Western style, details on the shower/bathing, and they brought up some Japanese tea and little cakes that basically tasted like twinkies. The owner of this Ryokan has been in business for about 30 years and has guest books that she keeps and asks all visitors to write in it. I think she was on the 115th book. Crazy huh?

Here are a few pictures of the Ryokan. I wish I had taken a picture of the outside. It was on a very small street right next to a little stream. Of course, like most businesses, they had the Tunuki statue and the Lucky Cat statues. Chris and I bought a Lucky Cat, but we’re still on the hunt for a Tanuki. Here is the wikipedia definition of a Tanuki. “Tanuki (raccoon dog) statue, as commonly seen in Japan as a good luck totem. Tanuki wears a straw hat, carries a flask of nihonshu (sake) and a fishing pole, and has outsize testicles.”

So we see them all over the place. I found on the web this huge one that someone took a picture next to. I wish I knew where it was. (I blacked out the persons face because I don’t know who it is and don’t want to get in trouble) Chris and I really want to get a Tanuki Family statue. They’re just so cute. We’d like to have some souvenirs of items/things that Japanese people have or use often. And since we’ve seen these Tanuki EVERYWHERE, it’s perfect I’m really not sure where we’ll put them in our home when we get back to the US. We’ll figure it out.

We arrived in Kyoto in the early afternoon. So we went and did some sight seeing after dropping off our luggage at the Ryokan. We walked from the Ryokan to a street filled with outside vendors of pottery. Then looking at the map we continued a little further North (on the eastern side of Kyoto) to a few shrines.

Old Tree held up by supports

We went into this park – Muryama Park. We walked by a nice little pond area. There was a Japanese couple that was looking very closely at something at the edge of the water. When they left, we walked over to find several turtles peeking out of the water from time to time. Here is a picture of our little turtle friend popping up to say hello.

There was a huge Shrine there (there’s a picture of the entrance with a very tiny Chris and Mom standing in front of it). Unfortunately, there was a sign that said “The time is over” Engrish for, it’s closed. So funny some of the signs we see written in English.

Chion in

We met an actor in a Samurai costume who was taking some publicity photos at the park. Chris was lucky enough to get a picture with him. Check it out.

So this was all on the first day. That night we went to an okay restaurant that was in a department store next to the train station. On the 11th floor I think (it was pretty high) It was a cool view of the city. The next day we got up at a decent our and hit an art museum, The Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art. It was a really nice museum. A bit smaller than I thought it would be. Then we took a taxi across town to the Nijo-jo Castle. It was really nice. A lot of fun. Beautiful and very interesting. Here are several pictures. We couldn’t take any pictures inside the buildings. My favorite part inside was the squeaky floor. It was called a Nightingale Floor. It was designed to make noise whenever someone walked on it so they could tell if intruders were there. At one point, walking through the area, I couldn’t seem to make the floor squeak so I was kind of skipping along – a guard just happened to be behind us (a woman) and she was really nice about it, but was like no jumping please only walking – I was super embarrassed – an adult acting like a kid

Ninomaru Park

After the castle, we went to a Manga Museum. I think it was called the International Museum of Manga. It wasn’t at all what we expected. It was more like a big library of Manga comics than an actual museum. I took a couple pictures of some really cute stuffed animals. This was my favorite.

That about finished off our time in Kyoto. We didn’t get to see as much as I thought we would BUT the weather was pretty unbearable, so I think we did the best we could considering the circumstances.

Okay, I have to get to work. It’s my ½ day!!! And then my weekend. I have many more stories to tell hopefully I can get them out and get caught up with my time in Japan!