A LIFE NOT THOUGHT POSSIBLE
I had the swellest weekend in the time I’ve been here: I got to do the things I never thought were possible in Japan: the lifestyle I had enjoyed in Sydney.
Dave put me up in the dorm over the saturday night and through the weekend, we biked up and down from dorms to the city by way of Kyoto’s Kamagawa river. We ambled along the shopping boulevards aimlessly except to take in the sights and smells as they came along, sampling the pungent pickles that Kyoto is famous for lined in barrels along Nishiki-koji market, catching the thrilling sight (rather than the taste) of the deadly fugu (Globefish/blowfish) which would have set me back $120-150 for dinner, the less thrilling but no less shocking sight of THREE medium-large sized strawberries costing $16 (and not even a punnet!), traditional mochi in the making - a dough of rice flour pounded on stone mills with a huge wooden mallet to a fine glutinous texture (and the dawning that “mochi” and “muah-chee” are the same thing), savouring the anko (ang as in “red”) sweets made from adzuki beans in small doses - think red bean paste and the variations of sweets made from it that you may sample in Singapore’s dessert smorgasboard - “ang tao teng”, “ang ku kueh” and “an-pan” (“pan” as in bread) and for caffeine comrades, what Japan lacks in coffee in makes up for in tea, sacks and sacks of green and brown blends, and the roaster emanating its soothing scents.
Pickles. Pickles. And more pickles.
This would be about AUD$130!
Thats AUD$5 for one!
The deadly Globefish.
The stuff of green tea.
Traditional Japanese kitchenware.
Another Kyoto non-native besides me.
And, when we tired walking up and down the grid city, we moved to into the historic geisha sitrict of Gion and had tea in a Japanese teahouse, kneeling on tatami mats in a wooden hut overlooking a serene pond with award winning carps as we sipped a creamy froth of matcha and had yet more variations on the anko-mochi theme of sweets. Alas, the closest I will ever get to the geisha culture of exquisite grace and refinement that the district is famous for, will be sighting of a convoy of them travelling in jinrikisha(rickshaw) carriages, complete with policed escorts as peak hour city traffic stopped for them. So much for sightseeing.
It really does look like this.
The closest I'll ever get.
But the real highlight of the weekend, aside from the easy pace, was the Kamogawa river. Up and down the river we went, cutting through an old forest and finding a Shinto shrine gate, lit up at night, and having that exclusively for ourselves, stopping along the river banks on sunday to people-watch and dog-watch (chihuahua, labradors, corgis and even a whippet!). The latter is virtually impossible anywhere else in Japan. For one, hardly anyone would dedicate time to the care of an animal, let alone the walking of dogs, and secondly, there isn’t much space dedicated to such leisure. So, when we could, we grabbed a “real” expresso (sans scalded milk) from Starbucks and looked for a patch of green and actually got to lay by the water. They say music soothes the savage soul, I say the running waters of the Kamogawa quenches the flames of my frustration. And, as we laid down by the river, so my soul longeth after this: to sate my palate for culture, my soul for nature and the company and opportunity to do it with. How I would move to Kyoto in a heartbeat.
Spring is in the air!
Dave put me up in the dorm over the saturday night and through the weekend, we biked up and down from dorms to the city by way of Kyoto’s Kamagawa river. We ambled along the shopping boulevards aimlessly except to take in the sights and smells as they came along, sampling the pungent pickles that Kyoto is famous for lined in barrels along Nishiki-koji market, catching the thrilling sight (rather than the taste) of the deadly fugu (Globefish/blowfish) which would have set me back $120-150 for dinner, the less thrilling but no less shocking sight of THREE medium-large sized strawberries costing $16 (and not even a punnet!), traditional mochi in the making - a dough of rice flour pounded on stone mills with a huge wooden mallet to a fine glutinous texture (and the dawning that “mochi” and “muah-chee” are the same thing), savouring the anko (ang as in “red”) sweets made from adzuki beans in small doses - think red bean paste and the variations of sweets made from it that you may sample in Singapore’s dessert smorgasboard - “ang tao teng”, “ang ku kueh” and “an-pan” (“pan” as in bread) and for caffeine comrades, what Japan lacks in coffee in makes up for in tea, sacks and sacks of green and brown blends, and the roaster emanating its soothing scents.
Pickles. Pickles. And more pickles.
This would be about AUD$130!
Thats AUD$5 for one!
The deadly Globefish.
The stuff of green tea.
Traditional Japanese kitchenware.
Another Kyoto non-native besides me.
And, when we tired walking up and down the grid city, we moved to into the historic geisha sitrict of Gion and had tea in a Japanese teahouse, kneeling on tatami mats in a wooden hut overlooking a serene pond with award winning carps as we sipped a creamy froth of matcha and had yet more variations on the anko-mochi theme of sweets. Alas, the closest I will ever get to the geisha culture of exquisite grace and refinement that the district is famous for, will be sighting of a convoy of them travelling in jinrikisha(rickshaw) carriages, complete with policed escorts as peak hour city traffic stopped for them. So much for sightseeing.
It really does look like this.
The closest I'll ever get.
But the real highlight of the weekend, aside from the easy pace, was the Kamogawa river. Up and down the river we went, cutting through an old forest and finding a Shinto shrine gate, lit up at night, and having that exclusively for ourselves, stopping along the river banks on sunday to people-watch and dog-watch (chihuahua, labradors, corgis and even a whippet!). The latter is virtually impossible anywhere else in Japan. For one, hardly anyone would dedicate time to the care of an animal, let alone the walking of dogs, and secondly, there isn’t much space dedicated to such leisure. So, when we could, we grabbed a “real” expresso (sans scalded milk) from Starbucks and looked for a patch of green and actually got to lay by the water. They say music soothes the savage soul, I say the running waters of the Kamogawa quenches the flames of my frustration. And, as we laid down by the river, so my soul longeth after this: to sate my palate for culture, my soul for nature and the company and opportunity to do it with. How I would move to Kyoto in a heartbeat.
Spring is in the air!
posted by The Chilibuddy @ 8:08 pm ::
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