Wednesday, July 23, 2008

The Kyoto Heat Wave

Ordinarily I would not be one to be so affected by heat, but the temperature in Kyoto the last 24 hours has been no joke!

The first thing we noticed when we arrived at the Kyoto station were all these posters and signs for the Osamu Tezuka World. Here I am with Pinoko.
Unfortunately the Tezuka "world" was more like a corner that occupied a section of the lobby of the theater above the station where the upcoming shows were Westside Story and Anne of Green Gables (no, not imports, but performed by Japanese actors.... need I say more?) But we managed to buy some key Black Jack paraphernalia and I got this pic of Irwin with his hero, the unlicensed playboy doctor.
On the first evening, we walked the Philosopher's Path and met up with Chie for dinner at her University where she hates working -- the Kyoto University of Art & Design's Art Center. It was a pretty impressive campus from an outsider's perspective. Buildings had goofy names like Ningen-kan (the Human Wing) and Kibo-kan (the Wing of Hope). There was an exhibition we peeked into which featured a humongous robot, which apparently also talked.

This morning we started off on Chie's bikes to a brief temple visit, and then to an old downtown stretch of shops on Nishiki Dori, specializing in foods an food-related items. Here's Irwin drooling over kitchenware.We were going to go to a ramen shop for lunch, but when we got there it was inexplicably closed, so we went to a soba joint next door instead. We had to share our table with another couple who were apparently on a date. It was pretty funny actually, overhearing their conversation. The guy was talking about how he had had 2 dogs, both labrador retrievers, but one of them died of cancer, and the girl was like, I didn't know dogs got cancer. We left the restaurant, biked over towards the river and spotted a cute cafe. We went in for some tea and cake, and found the SAME COUPLE continuing their date at this cafe! They must have thought we were stalking them. It was pretty funny and cute, actually. Well, at least we had found all the cute date spots in Kyoto!

In the early evening, after some time at the Keibunsha bookstore, we met up with Chie to go deep into the forest to Kurama, where there was a lovely simple onsen. The train ride into the mountain forest area was lovely, as was our bath. There was a seasonal eating area set up right over the river, but the meal courses were way too expensive for us, so we came back into town for dinner.Ramen-gai (or Ramen Street) was just a block away from Keibunsha bookstore, and it was basically our wet dream come true. Ramen places lining both sides of the street. We chose this place for its great facade.They were famous for their soup, created from seafood, vegetables and meat broth. I had their classic ramen, pictured below. I have nothing at all to complain about -- it was delicious!
Looking back on the day we accomplished quite a lot, especially considering the heat is seriously melting my brain. Irwin and I both got a bit sunburnt from our bike-riding. We got Chie some electric fans to stave off the heat. We need to plan a bit better tomorrow -- ploting our way across town from one air-conditioned spot to the next....

2 comments:

Kayolks said...

gorgeous pictures, aya.

i bet Lynn looks exactly like you from when you were little- you look like a grown up version of her in that picture! weird.

ayagwa said...

I KNOW, right?! Sometimes when my borther sends me pix of her, for a split second I think he's dug up some old photo of me! It's uncanny.