Kyoto Kimonos

03/30/09 MONDAY

Today we went to Kyoto.  The JR Kyoto station is so nice, clean, and big compared to the Osaka station.  Our main goal was to try this awesome burnt miso ramen place that Mimi told us about, visit the Nishiki Market, and see the Kiyomizu-dera (Temple).  It took us awhile to get to the Gogyo ramen place because directions aren’t these easy to come by on the internet or people. It’s so hard to understand addresses and streets here. And their blocks are exactly the blocks I have in my mind. Anyhow, while getting to the ramen place, I saw this place that looked kind of like the

 outside of the ramen house and I didn’t understand the Japanese words, but I did see some pictures of the inside that looked like what I saw on the website. I didn’t exactly look open, so I opened the door to see if it was unlocked. I slid open the door and holy crap, I think it was someone’s house. I closed the door and walked away quickly.  So we went further down the street and bumped into the Nishiki Market by accident Yeah! I asked someone nearby about the Gogyo ramen place and guess what..i was only maybe 100 feet from it.  It was just a little bit further down.  When we finally got there, luckily they spoke a little English to help us with the menu. 

Elgin and I only wanted to share 1 bowl because we wanted to try other things in the Nishiki market as well. Unfortunately, we’ve noticed that not too many restaurants here like it when you share. So Elgin ordered 1 bowl of burnt miso ramen that came with salad, and I ordered a dessert. The burnt miso and salad were very tasty and my dessert was memorable (a cold soybean custard).

After we ate, we walked down Nishiki Market and sampled all the tasty pickled vegetables.  I bought 10 tofu doughnuts for 250 yen and smelled all the fresh tofu down the street. I really wanted to try the block 

cuttlefish on a stick, but I was too full. Then we started walking towards the temple, boy..what a walk. We walked up Shijo-dori, past Gion, and then up to the temple. We thought about taking the bus up to the temple, but it was so cram packed we decided not to. In actuality, we walked just about as fast of the bus because of the traffic going up. Hah to the people that paid 100 yen to sit on the crowded bus! Or is it hah to us because toll on our feet?!  

On our way back from the temple, we walked back down  this hill which was easier and then did a little window shipping on Shijo-dori and Gion. We saw so many pretty kimonos.

We grabbed a quick bite to eat in the cheap side hole in the wall restaurants for udon and soba. Pretty tasty bowls of noodles, not sure how much MSG was in it though. But it got us warm and back on our feet. 

We also stopped to eat grilled sweet rice cakes recommended by Denise. Yum yum!