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Day 7, Tokyo to Kyoto, 12/21 Wednesday

The train ride from Tokyo to Kyoto was a breeze. C and I shared a soda, a bottle of green tea, and two hours or so later we were in Kyoto. Getting from Kyoto Station to our hotel was even easier, as we were staying in Hotel Granvia, which is built directly on top of the super-modern Kyoto Station. We booked our room through utell.com and got a decent rate, a little under $200 a night. The hotel is fairly luxurious and huge, almost 600 rooms. Normally C and I are more comfortable in smaller hotels, but we really enjoyed the Granvia. Our room was large, on the 10th floor or so, with a good view. The robes and slippers in the room were really cozy. The beds were hard, but super comfortable. The bathtub was big enough for two people. The toilet seat heated. The bathroom mirror had a face-sized section that must’ve been cooled or heated from within, as it remained steam-free even during hot showers.

By the time we got settled into our room and then ready to eat, it was after 9 pm. Most of the restaurants in the station were shutting down. So we walked outside the station, thinking we might find something halfway decent nearby. This was a mistake, as we later found out that the best restaurants in that part of town are actually in the series of malls connected to the station. Usually in the US it seems like it’s the other way around; you must escape the giant mall complex to find something authentic and good. We strolled around the streets surrounding the station and settled on a yakitori bar on a side street. C’s ramen noodles were pretty good, but my yakitori was really awful: bland, poor quality. Oh well.

Day 8, Thursday 12/22

We woke, looked out the window; lo and behold it was snowing. I went downstairs to the tourist office in the Kyoto Station complex and tried to get some maps. I experienced a wave of frustration; I felt like I had just begun to learn how to get around Tokyo and now I was in a totally new city, with a different public transportation system. Also we didn’t have a guidebook for Kyoto, just some printouts from the Fodors and Frommers website, so I really didn’t know what to see. I went upstairs, pulsating and confused. C calmly suggested we talk to the concierge in our hotel. I had never really used a concierge before, but I must admit the experience was wonderful. She was very sweet, took her time with us, gave us several maps, helped set-up an itinerary with clear transportation instructions. (She also gave us some restaurant tips that later turned out to be brilliant.) She told us that we should go to Kinkakuki, the Temple of the Golden Pavilion because it would be beautiful in the snow. So we took a subway and then waited about 5 minutes for a 15-minute, crowded bus ride. The bus was much less comfortable than the subway, but we kind of enjoyed being crammed in there, how everyone is pushed forward and together.

We got off the bus at the Golden Pavilion. All I can say is wow. It was so intoxicating to be there, amidst all the pine trees, with chunky snowflakes flurrying down. The contrast of the gold building, with the water and the pure white was enchanting. We strolled through the pathways of the Pavilion taking pictures. I was glad to have just read Mishima’s book in the voice of the deranged monk who destroyed the Golden Pavilion decades before.

We bussed it back to the metro station and then took the subway to Nijo Castle, built around 1600. We found it very interesting to compare a Japanese castle with ones we had visited in Europe; Nijo seemed familiar, yet different. Upon entering, we had to take off our shoes. Our feet were rather chilly, but luckily our socks were not super-wet, despite having tramped through the snow. We loved the squeaky sounds our feet made on the wooden “nightingale” floors; the floors were designed to squeak so as to expose any intruder, even a tiptoeing one. We loved how simple and toned down Nijo Castle was; in our minds, European castles suddenly seemed crowded with objects and garish. We noted the minimalist tatami rugs in each room. It was interesting to see paintings applied directly to walls and sliding panels; the wall and the painting became one and the same, whereas in Europe the painting is constructed separately and then hung on the wall. This touched on a broader observation: in Japan art and function seemed to be tightly intertwined, hence the elaborate presentation of food, the artistry of ceramic bowls, even the beauty of well-designed kimonos.

We took the audio tour of Nijo, which we both found worthwhile, and then explored the extensive gardens. Then we took the subway back home. We were very happy to be back in our nice, clean, spacious room. C took a bath and a nap; I went down to the hotel pool. They charged me $10 to use the facilities, which I guess is the tendency in Japanese hotels. The pool and sauna were so nice though that I hardly minded the expense. I was a little taken aback by a sign at the pool entry desk though that stated: “no alcohol, no people who have been drinking alcohol, and no people with tattoos”; (I have two small ones.) Swimming laps in the pool was hugely relaxing, and after a steam room, I was feeling fresh and ripe for dinner; in our daytime explorations we had neglected to eat lunch. We decided to follow the concierge’s advice and eat within the station/mall complex; there must be over a 100 options in there. She circled three of them in particular. We went to the 11th floor of an adjacent mall complex. There are other floors with restaurants in that particular building, but the 11th floor is the one with the high-class options: over a dozen. Part of me didn’t trust this eating in a mall concept, but we were tired, and it was cold out. We went into a place the concierge recommended, Wakudan (not sure about the exact spelling). Can you say heaven? The two choices are the $50 set menu (per person) and the $80 set menu. We went with the $50 meal, and it was one of the best meals we’ve ever had. It was an 8-course kaiseki meal, meaning an array of small, unique dishes presented one after the other. The food was all exquisitely prepared. Often we had no idea what we were eating, but we didn’t mind, and the staff was so friendly—showing us pictures of the fish they were serving. One dish was called a “sea breeze” I think. There was also a frothy miso broth with clams in it. There was some sashimi and other delicious concoctions, all finished off with slices off a giant apple that appeared to be the size of a small bowling ball. The extremely pleasant staff kept our cups of roasted tea filled throughout the night. We later found out that the Wakudan restaurant in the mall was a low-cost alternative to their main restaurant, which charges $350 per person for dinner. We took the elevator down from the 12th floor of the mall, walked thirty feet across the train station and entered our hotel.

Thinking about it now, the Hotel Granvia and all the restaurants in Kyoto Station kind of remind me of the new Time Warner Center in New York. Maybe also a little like Siam Paragon in Bangkok. All new malls with really fancy stores and super-fancy restaurants. Malls that don’t fit into the narrow connotations of the word “mall”. Malls that destroy assumptions and re-define the term.

Day 9, Friday 12/23

It wasn’t snowing anymore, but there was still some white stuff on the ground. We started our day with pastries and yummy plain Belgian waffles from a shop in the ground floor of the train station, then took a bus to Ginkakuji, the Temple of the Silver Pavilion. This part of Kyoto, the Northeast, is especially charming. We felt like we were in an upscale mountain town somewhere in Colorado. The Silver Temple was impressive, and the manicured grounds looked great covered in snow. We especially loved the contrast of red leaves on the branches of several bushes and the hyper-whiteness of the snowy branches being hit by the sun. It was a very pleasant experience, just strolling through the grounds. For some reason, I thought going to a temple would be: enter, look, leave. But it’s much more about the approach, and walking along curved paths, and seeing the temple from various angles, and being in this aesthetically reassuring environment: bamboo railings on the stone staircase, well-situated ponds, carefully trimmed trees.

We then walked down the philosopher’s path along the narrow waterway. C loved the sound of the snow crunching under her feet. It was a very charming endeavor with many little bridges and temples sprinkled along the way. We then caught a bus to make our 2 pm reservation at Moritaya, a restaurant that specializes in sukiyaki. Again, all I can say is heaven. We had our own private room, with a sliding glass door facing a rock garden. We sat on tatami mats. A traditionally-dressed waitress brought in a mini-stove and proceeded to make our sukiyaki meal. It was about $45 each for fairly high-quality beef. The place had a higher level of beef that was $80 a person that is supposedly on par with Kobe beef, but our concierge told us that for sukiyaki it is almost a waste to get such high-grade beef as there is so much sauce etc. The thin-slices of beef that we had in our sukiyaki was so far above anything we had ever had in the US. That is one problem with going to Japan: it may ruin Japanese food in the US for you. (We went for sushi last night in New York to a place we used to like, and it was suddenly very unimpressive.)

Our all-purpose waitress/cook mixed in a chunk of fat to grease and flavor the bottom of the pot, then she sprinkled sugar on. We didn’t know that sugar was an ingredient, but it makes perfect sense as sukiyaki is so sweet. She then threw in slices of chopped beef and poured in a pre-mixed broth of some sort. She offered us each raw eggs; C declined, I accepted. You crack open the raw egg and stir it around, and then you dip the food from the hot pot into the raw egg before feeding it into your mouth. I guess the raw egg serves two purposes: taste obviously, but maybe also to cool the food down. I’m just guessing. It may sound strange, but it is delicious. She then mixed in onions, tofu, some green vegetables that I don’t know the name for, and more razor-thin slices of beef. Our meal was punctuated by several small dishes, including a soup, some raw fish, and something pickled. Needless to say, by the end I was so full and content that when the waitress left the room, I let myself roll over to my side and recline. I could’ve slept in there for an hour. About fifteen minutes later, a new waitress walked in; I think she was taken aback by me lack of decorum, but I digress.

After our feast at Mortiya, we limped into Gion and visited one of the arts and craft complexes. We really, really liked a set of ceramic tea cups, but were worried about lugging them around for three weeks without damaging them, and we also worried about the weight of our suitcases. In hindsight, I wish we would’ve bought them. They were lovely. I guess I thought (wrongly) that I might find something similar in Thailand. We wandered around Gion for a few hours, enjoying it mostly, and stumbled upon some geishas right around sunset. That was exciting for us. We also noticed what appeared to be geisha paparazzi staked out with huge cameras, waiting to capture the geishas on film.

We took a bus home and relaxed. After our huge, delicious lunch, a bag of chips and a bath was fine for dinner.

Day 10, 12/24, Saturday
We took a bus to the Nanzenji Temple, the shrine right by the Westin Hotel. This complex was interesting enough, and we enjoyed our hour there, but it was not nearly as stunning as the Silver or Golden Pavilion. (How quick we get jaded.) We especially like the groups of well-dressed Japanese schoolboys in the vicinity; they were very dashing in their scarves, gray suits, and youthful exuberance.

Walking towards Higashiyama, we ducked into a non-descript café on the outskirts of Gion for a surprisingly delicious, inexpensive lunch. I had a bento box with fried chicken, a shrimp salad, some cold noodles, and miso, all for under 10 bucks. We then entered Maruyama Park and took a delightful walk through Higashiyama, the walk suggested by Frommers. We loved the narrow corridors and all the people watching, and the curves and hills of the street. There were lots of cute shops to duck into, and it was very pleasant to be outdoors, wandering around. The path eventually lead us to Kiyomizu Temple, which was jaw-dropping. It’s view of the city is magnificent, and the old wooden beams supporting the building’s weight are fascinating. Kiyomizu was crowded, but not in a way that was uncomfortable. We loved how there were so many young Japanese people there, and how festive it felt, as if we were at a carnival, not a temple.

We took a bus back to Granvia and got ready for a big kaiseki dinner that night at a place in Gion, Yogunburri, that I had read about in Frommers. I had huge expectations; Frommers had raved about it, and the kaiski meal we had two nights before was dynamite. All I can say is Yogunburri was a mega-disappointment. In hindsight, I should’ve asked the concierge if there was someplace better, should've included her more in the decision-making process. Yogunburri's best days seemed to be in the past. There was a has-been feeling in the air. The cooking was uninspired. The atmosphere bland. The people who worked there seemed bored. It wasn’t crowded. To be fair, some of the dishes were good, but overall it got a big thumbs down. (To make matters worse, the next day we asked the concierge where we should’ve gone, and she named a place not too far from where we ate, a place off the beaten path and very authentic.) After our mediocre meal, (the most expensive one of our whole trip: $80 each for 10 courses), we strolled through Gion. I began to despise the whole area, began to see it as a cousin of Reno, Nevada, a place whose heyday had come and gone. Obviously I was a little bitter as I had a pleasant reaction to Gion only a day before. Just goes to show what a bad meal can do to a tender traveler's psyche.

Day 11, 12/25, Kyoto

We got up early, went downstairs and boarded the train to Kansai Airport. We were there in 45 minutes. The airport was a little bit of a madhouse, but we checked in without too much of a wait, and boarded the plane for Bangkok (Thai Air), where we would then catch a connecting flight for Siem Reap (Bangkok Air). It seemed like we saw more Westerners on the 6-hour plane to Bangkok than we had during our whole 10 nights in Japan.