Tofu and Bamboo Groves - Kyoto

Brellowgirl
Oct 27, 2015
2 min read

One of my favorite things about Japan is waking up on a cold morning and sitting on a warm toilet seat. Honestly, Toto toilets are the bomb. One of these babies will be my first investment when I move into my own place.

Kyoto is just how I remember-beautiful and busy. Our Air Bnb is about a mile and a half away from the Kyoto train station so a few hours after we got in I walked back to the station to meet up with Vin. We went to a pub-yes, a pub, close to the station and we had a few beers and caught up. We then went and had ramen at a place nearby. It was SO nice to have a full out conversation in English for the first time in days. I didn’t need my map getting back to the air bnb and gave myself a mental pat on the back for that. =]

In the morning we went to Nishiki Market and saw all the food stands selling yummy and interesting things. I found apples the size of my face and we passed stalls selling the funkiest smelling fish. There were shops that specialized in everything made out of sesame and shops that had all kinds of tempura and katsu straight out of the deep fryer, lined up and ready to be sold. The weirdest thing that we saw was baby octopus that were on skewers that had quail eggs cooked in their heads. I would eat the quail egg and I would eat the octopus but it was really weird that they put the egg inside of the octopus so we kept moving.

We had an amazing lunch with a friend of my grandmother’s and her husband. We had the most delicious tofu that just melted in my mouth and a bunch of other side dishes like picked radishes and eggplant, tempura, poached eggs, dried fish and more. We went to Tenryu-ji Temple after lunch and walked through the beautiful Japanese gardens to the picturesque Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. I love bamboo forests and this place was so cool to walk through. The pictures don’t do it justice at all and I wish it had been led crowded so I could get some good pictures but we were there at a busy time of the day. It was beautiful nonetheless and I’m glad I finally got to see it in person instead of through pinterest pages. Nani’s friend treated us to ice cream afterwards-I got matcha (green tea) so bitter but so good. The bowl had red bean and chestnut in it also with some whipped cream. So odd eating beans with ice cream but it was fine.

By the time we got back to the air bnb I was pooped. It was a bit overcast all day and it started raining shortly after we got back so I stayed in with my grandmother while mom and tia went out again. Traveling takes so much energy out of you. I don’t know how my grandmother does it but I hope I have her stamina when I’m her age. I’m heading off to bed. Long day tomorrow in Nara.

Much love,

Cas