Adventures with Mother: Kyoto

Omatase~ Sorry for keeping you waiting! Second part of adventures with mother! Kyoto side!

Kyoto Day 1 (Dec 26): We arrived in Kyoto at 6am and everything was closed. With nothing to do, mother and I walked around Kyoto station until a restaurant opened where I had some toast and mother had some pancakes.

As soon as everything opened up, we got some information on how to get around and were walking out of the station when we found....this!

 Movie promotion place for the Tale of Genji movie with Ikuta Toma! The week before, I had watched this movie, so this was pretty exciting. It was a good movie, I thought. Very pretty visually. Extremely sensual for Japanese standards of a movie. And kind of difficult to understand since it was mostly in old Japanese.

As we stepped out of the station, we saw Kyoto Tower:

After dropping our stuff off at our hostel, K's House, we went on the buses and visited Himeji Castle (which was unfortunately closed, so we just got a picture out front).

The all day bus pass was not such a good idea since we couldn't figure out where we were going and we were both just soo tired from the bus ride to Kyoto that we went back to our hostel as soon as possible.
This is our hostel--it was a bunk bed style single room with a toilet and shower outside. Unlike our first hostel where we had room service, it was actually more 'hostel-like'. It was all very clean and nice, though.

 I had the top bunk♪

This was the lounge area. Very nice. I especially liked the floor table in the left hand corner.

These are the rows of computers that we used to skype home! They had no camera, but the sound was good.

The tables where we had breakfast and there was free coffee and tea available.

 This was the communal kitchen:

Kyoto Day 2 (Dec 27): Mother was smart and asked the front desk for information about Kyoto so that we could have a better day than the first. And so we headed for Kiyomizu Temple. The slope to get there was so pretty and full of souvinir shops and fresh food.

First, we bought a freshly baked rice cracker w/ nori:

 nomnomnom~

 Of course, I had to take a picture with Kyoto-style Minnie:

 There were lots of pretty pottery.

 And then we arrived at Kiyomizu Temple.

 Mother had some trouble with the stairs...

 But I got up fine and still remaining super cute! (just kidding..)

At the temple, we took a spiritual experience where you went down underground through this super dark pathway where you can't see a single thing. The only way you can move is by following a rope along the wall and trusting it to lead you the right way. At the end of the path, we reached the 'womb' of the Boddhisatva which is this large round stone with a Buddhist symbol inscription. When we got there, we put our hands on the rock and made a prayer before making our way back to the light.

Afterwards, we got 'omikuji' fortunes. Mother and I both got good luck.

 These fountains are used to purify the hands and mouth before entering the temple.

 The view from the temple was so pretty. Kyoto is surrounded by mountains which is why it's always very cold in the winter and very hot during the summer.

 On our way down the hill, we stopped by a vendor and bought "ika-age" aka fried squid. It was delicious:

 Upon Mother's suggestion, we headed off on a tangent down a very traditional style street. It was so pretty.

 To rest at actual tables, we stopped by a cafe with a really pretty natural garden:

 I ordered a traditional Japanese sweet: anmitsu. It has fruits and geletin (kanten) and mochi (rice cake) and red bean. Sooo yummy.

 Mother had a very tasty lemon tea.

Afterwards, we continued on and found a tofu manju (tofu bun) shop. One tofu manju came with tea for both of us. It was very tasty. It tasted kind of like corn actually.

 This is Gojuu no tou--a very tall and famous pagoda.

 These are the famous three monkeys (Sanzaru). Pretty much the Japanese version of hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil.

Kyoto Day 3 (Dec 28): This day we went to visit the famous Golden Pavilion, Kinkakuji.
Kenia with Kinkakuji:

 Mother with Kinkakuji:

 This was pretty much a tourist trap. I think if you got it into the cup, your wish would come true. We saw this Korean guy get it in. I knew I wouldn't be able to make it, so I didn't even try.

 I thought this tower was very zen since it's balanced on a round rock:

 After Kinkakuji, we headed towards the bathhouse, but it didn't open until 3pm. To kill some time, mother suggested that we go to one of the small restaurants in the neighborhood. I was a bit hesitant, but in the end, I'm glad I listened to her. The food at this restaurant was so good! It was a traditional Japanese style meal, coming on lots of small plates, and reasonably priced.
This was my meal: (left to right) potato salad, seaweed, boiled pork and daikon, brown rice, miso soup with squash, Japanese pickles.

Mother's meal was the same, except her main dish was a curry chicken. 

 This was the front of the restaurant. There was an American couple there who I helped translate for. The guy waiter was so cute and awkward and thanked me for translating as I left. I would go back again. Super reccommended~

 And then we went to the bath house. It was a very interesting cultural experience. Apparently, this is a pretty famous bath house. The water was so warm and afterwards, we felt so refreshed! It's a public bath, though, so everyone gets naked in front of everyone. Most of the customers on the women's side were talkative old ladies with wrinkled bodies and sagging chests haha...

 And then we left Kyoto that night at 11pm on another night bus. These final two pictures are for Xan. These were taken inside Kyoto station. He sent me a picture of this store earlier and told me I needed to visit there. So, I found it, Xan! Japanese crazy cakes!

To be continued...

Adventures with mother: Arrival-->Xmas

On December 23rd, my mom came to visit me! It was so much fun and I talked all the amount I hadn't been able to talk since I came here.

Day 1 (Dec 23): After 2 extra hours of waiting, I finally met up with mother from her flight and we took the Skyliner (a famous super fast train) from Narita Airport.

At Nippori station, they were decked out with cute Xmas stuff:

 And mother had fun taking stalker photos of the guys selling stuff in Santa suits:

 We arrived at our first hostel: Sakura Hotel in Ikebukuro. It was so nice and even had room service--well, it was the most expensive of the hostels that we stayed at. Mother and I went walking around the city and were able to see a bit of the mall Sunshine 60 before it closed for the night. Mother bought a fluffy keychain and earrings.

Day 2 (Dec 24): Mother and I had breakfast at the Sakura hotel and went to Tamachi to visit my university campus. She really liked it. Then, we walked to Tokyo Tower and checked out the souvenir shop--she was too scared to go up it. This is her tired face after climbing the steep slope to get to the tower:

 Then, we went to Shibuya. We walked around a little and it was loud and annoying as usual. Mother doesn't like it very much. Since the restaurant we wanted to go to was crowded, we went to Miami Garden for pasta where I had squid and clam pasta. We also found a spanish bar but the fee just to sit there was ridiculously expensive.

 Mother went to bed tired that night.

Day 3 (Dec 25): We checked out of Sakura Hotel and Mother came to visit my dorm. She really liked my neighborhood. We opened Xmas presents together and I got a bunch of care packages! aka food
After a rest, we went to Hiroko-san's house at 5pm for Xmas dinner. We had chocolate cake:

 and sukiyaki (thinly sliced beef, tofu, been sprouts, cabbage, noodles, onions etc):
It was made in the traditional Japanese way: on the table on a hot plate and everyone takes some out of the pan as they like.

 Mother and me with Hiroko-san's husband Yuji. This was the second time I was able to meet him. He's soo nice. Such a sweet and funny man.

 Me with my adopted Japanese parents: Hiroko-san and Yuji!

That night, we left Hiroko-san's house at 8ish so we could catch the night bus to Kyoto near Tokyo station. It was hard to find, but I found it! Riding the bus was such an interesting experience. It was pretty comfortable, and the bus constantly stopped at rest stops. Japanese rest stops are the cleanest places I've ever seen. They beat most American rest stops hands, arms, feet, and legs down. Really. Most of them don't have convenient stores--although some do--and these are replaced by vending machines. There are even vending machines that sell hot snacks like fried rice balls, squid balls, etc. Here's what a bathroom looks like:

 I thought this was amusing: the trashcan was called an "etiquette box":

 Little turtle plushie in the bathroom:

But my favorite part about this rest stop bathroom was that it had one of my favorite anime's music playing in the background. Just because of that, it gets my one hundred percent approval.

To be continued...