Kyoto & Nara Fire Festival January 2015

Japan January 2015

Tuesday, 1/20 and Wednesday 1/21

Before today, I thought that JJ was correct in saying that this trip is a bit short (8 days by my count and 6 days by hers).  The reason for the difference is I count days away from home and JJ counts days in Japan.  How you figguh?

After seeing CT this morning, I was glad that the trip is short as she seems really lonely after Marsh died.  We don’t know why as she was always mean to him but she was meowing loudly for a while after he was gone.  Now she meows loudly mostly to wake me up to feed her.

We are at the international terminal now, waiting for our flight.  We are trying the upgrade to comfort seats as it was only a $100.00 per person versus $500.00 for business class which has lousy food anyway.  We are hoping that the extra space will help JJ sleep better.  As Platinum members, we are supposed to get a free upgrade if space is available but so far, we were able to get it only once.

This trip should be interesting as we have only one outing planned, which is a fire festival in Nara.  That trip is also out of our “comfort zone” as we have to catch a completely different train line than we do normally.  It is located in the southern part of the Kyoto station.  All the seats are “reserved” also.  I don’t know if the festival is worth is as they recommend that viewers bring binoculars so it must be quite far away.   I left mine at home as I didn’t want to either carry it or send it through baggage.  Speaking of baggage, we are both traveling really light.  We each have only one large suitcase and one duffel bag that is packed with things to mail.  My camera bag also has my laptop as I figured that since we are not changing hotels, I can simply leave my laptop in the room while we are shopping, sight seeing, etc.  The bag is so stuffed, it reminds me of Tomasu after his meal.

Our slide show might end up being only about 5 minutes long.  Or both of us will really have to look for things to take pictures of.  Don’t be surprised if most of the pics end up as “abstract” or “guess what this is?”.

The upgrade to the comfort plus seats is well worth it.  The food (Black Bean Chicken) was as good as business class on our last trip (but not served on glassware) and there was really great legroom.  Actually, row 11 may be better as it is right behind the last row of business class and has even greater legroom so if you bring aboard a normal carry-on, you could use it as a leg rest for even more comfort.

The downside of paying for the upgrade is that we really didn’t have to.  While the sections in the rest of the plane, both business class and economy were pretty full, only four people were seated in the 24 seat section of comfort plus.  Imagine, the first time we opt to pay for it, we didn’t have to.  But, as I told JJ, I’d rather pay it at the beginning rather than spend the time checking to see how many empty seats there are before paying for the upgrade.

The other downer was that JJ still did not get to rest much and even felt a little airsick.  She is such a poor traveler that I wonder why she does it.  But, to her, the negatives of the plane ride is more than offset by the positives once we reach our destination.

Got to see a great sunset on the plane but it was completely dark when we landed at KIX at about 7:15 p.m.  It took a little more than an hour to go through immigration, customs and catch our shuttle.  We finally reached the Dormey Inn at about 10:00.  After unpacking, we both had barely enough energy to enjoy the wonderful noodles, then hit the sack.  It must be quite cold outside as many of the people enjoying the noodles have scarves, fur lined jackets, ski caps, etc. 

I got up at about 3:00 this morning so I am right back in the groove.  Something in the air is really bothering my allergy.  I started sneezing a little while on the shuttle and am sneezing even more once I got up this morning.  Even the allergy medication that I took before I slept is not working.

Our room, which is about 16 square meters (I think it’s a “Double”) is really small.  Much smaller than I remember or we must have gotten a “Twin” the last time.  We don’t even have enough space to leave our opened luggage.

Well, will close here and wait for JJ to awaken for breakfast.

Thursday, 1/22

Breakfast was really great.  The only thing is that we are going to have all of our breakfasts here and you all know how I start to get bored with the same ole food everyday.  We caught a glimpse of one of our fav TV shows, Massan.  But without subtitles, there was no sense in watching.

After breakfast, we asked the front desk if they had a larger room available.  They did but it was $33.00 a day more.  We took it as the old room was just too small.

Once we got that out of the way, we went over to the post office to mail some boxes.  The total for four parcels was less than it would have been for mailing the smallest box from Hilo to Japan.

We spent the rest of the day at Aeon Mall, looking for a Pea Coat for myself.   Couldn’t find anything in my size.  Most of the shops cater to the younger crowd.  We went to a Gelato shop before lunch, just as an excuse to sit and rest.  We then found a Korean restaurant.  JJ had her fav Bi Bin Bap in a hot rock (ceramic bowl) and I ordered ox tail soup.  JJ said it was the second best that she ever tasted which is pretty good when you consider that there was no meat in it.  My ox tail soup featured a “Tonkotsu” type broth.  It looked so white and creamy and was so flavorful, my taste buds got overwhelmed before I could finish it.  The oxtail too, was also well flavored though it was a bit undercooked and tough.  Both of us enjoyed the side dish of Namul (bean sprouts).  If we go back, I think I’ll try their Kim Chee soup.

BTW, I emailed Hawn Air regarding our experience of paying for the upgrade and seeing that most of the section was empty.  To their credit, they responded really quickly and positively.  Here’s the conversation:

Me:

hi,
just a short note to let you know that as usual, you all did a great job in making our flight to kix enjoyable.

while paying $100.00 each for the upgrade to comfort plus was worth it, the downer was that there were 20 vacant seats in the section. and would you believe that this is the first time we decided to pay for it rather than waiting for the free upgrade as we only got it once before?

may i suggest that rather than waiting for the last minute to offer a free upgrade for platinum members, how about offering a confirmed upgrade for a small fee in lieu of the present $100.00?

yes, i realize that we could check seat availability daily to determine if we should pay for the upgrade, but do you really want your best customers to have to do this?

just a suggestion. keep up the good work.

lyman jakahi

Them:

Aloha Mr. Jakahi,

We're pleased to see that you patronized Hawaiian Airlines for another trip and are always grateful to hear your feedback.

We appreciate your kind words and understand your frustration on the numerous empty Extra Comfort seats after paying for your upgrade. I've shared your suggestion with our Product Development and HawaiianMiles managers for their review and consideration.

To assure you that your business is important to us, we're issuing each of you a $100 eTravel Credit towards a future Hawaiian Airlines flight. You'll receive another email in 5 - 7 business days detailing the terms and redemption instructions.

From our ohana to yours, we extend you a warm aloha and thank you for your loyalty to Hawaiian Airlines as Pualani Platinum members.

Sincerely,

I guess this means I shouldn’t complain about the trip back if the same thing happens again.  How you figguh?

Our new room at the Dormey Inn is much more spacious than our old one.  In our first room, we had problems trying to fit our luggage and on this trip, we even have two less carry on bags than normal. 

When we got back, our luggage was already in our new room .  Service at Japanese hotels (or most of Japan’s businesses) is phenomenal, especially when you consider that they do not even expect a tip!!! 

The weather today was cool and manageable.  My ears felt a bit chilled but other than that, it was good.  Even when we came back to our hotel, the walk was comfortable in spite of a light shower.  Wearing a jacket makes shopping really hard.  I told JJ that it might be better to be a bit cold going to the shopping area that having to deal with all of the extra “baggage”.  Hope it stays this way when we go to Nara on Saturday.

I hate to admit this, but age is slowly catching up to us, physically.  A couple of years ago, I carried about ½ dozen liter sized bottles of salad dressing for most of the day in Ohara, just outside of Kyoto.  Today, carrying back a similar load from the Aeon Mall to our hotel was difficult.  My arms were burning and my spine started hurting too, like it’s getting compressed.   I wonder if those inversion tables I see on TV really work?

I ended up getting a massage at the Onsen.  I asked that she concentrate on my back and it was so relaxing, I fell asleep.  For the most part, I would be taken to the point where the pain gets to be too intense, then pressure would be relieved.  This is a completely difference approach to the Hilo masseuses who practice “hurts good” techniques.

We enjoyed an early dinner at our fav Izakaya.  Food, service and beer was as good as we remember.  But somehow, it wasn’t as crowded as before.  Maybe their customers found another “home” when they were closed for renovations.  My taste is really changing.  The deep fried Ika that I used to enjoy now seems overpowering.  I still enjoyed the roast beef and sashimi, and of course, the Asahi Super Dry.  They also had the neatest salt dispenser.  It was a covered and decorated glass bowl with a small bamboo spoon.  See how my senior mind is not really clicking?  It didn’t even dawn on me to take a picture!!  How you figguh??

I asked JJ not to wake me up for the noodles as eating it every night will surely make me get tired of eating it.  So I hit the sack at 7:30.  Later, when the room was dark, I was jolted awake by the ringing of the telephone.  I was so disoriented that I went in the wrong direction to answer it.  My first reaction was that there was an emergency in the hotel.  When I answered it, someone spoke in Japanese.  When I responded with my “Nihongo Wakarimasen”, all I could hear was a woman talking in the background.  When I then said “I think you called the wrong room”, the person hung up the phone.  I was more relieved than irritated and quickly fell asleep.

The only pics I took yesterday was of food!  The chances of our slideshow is getting slimmer and slimmer.

Friday, 1/23:

The only negative thing about breakfast is that the coffee is not very good as compared to our daily Kau coffee at home.  It is far better than most restaurants in Hawaii but I somehow hold restaurants in Japan to a higher standard.  I told JJ that I could spend a lot of time and gain weight at the buffet.  There is such a huge variety of foods and being able to choose small portions makes it perfect for my finicky taste buds.  Some of the main items are changed daily.

After another great breakfast, we went to Daimaru Department store and Nishikii  Market as they are right next to each other in the Shijo area.  After we went to the subway gate, I realized that I forgot to bring my map and did not know what line to catch.  So I left JJ and walked to the bus station for a Bus/Subway map.  After that, it was smooth all the way. 

We both agreed to leave our heavy jackets back and just bring gloves and a scarf for JJ and a thermal cap for me as shopping at Aeon Mall yesterday was really hard either wearing or holding our jackets.  It turned out to be a good decision as the weather was really nice today with no rain while we were out walking.

We went to Daimaru to find a Pea Coat for me.  The store is huge, with many staff people and is generally very expensive.  After a couple of false starts, I finally found something I liked.  It’s not exactly what I would call a Pea Coat as it doesn’t have the double row of buttons (don’t know if that a requirement for a coat to be called a Pea Coat).  But it had a removable down vest which would make it more practical for travel to Japan.

I also found a wallet that’s made in Japan so the larger Yen bills fit in it well and a Fleece Jacket to replace my old worn looking one (JJ really hated my old one, always reminding me of it’s rattyness).  JJ found some hand towels for omiyage as well as a couple of CD’s for music for our slideshow.  

The service is really great.  I asked one lady where I could find men’s wallets and she walked us over to another department.  She then stayed to answer questions and even checked me out when I decided on the wallet to purchase.

The store has a huge variety of products.  Many appear to be high end (I saw a plain looking woolen men’s coat for about $900.00).  They have a lot of staff so it’s always easy to find someone if we were looking for something.

We had a little problem with communication with the clerks.  One asked if we were travelers as if we were, we could go to the seventh floor to get the tax refunded.  When we went to the next clerk, we tried to verify this and she ended up calling someone to explain to us in English.  That person told me to ask the clerk for a discount coupon by showing our passport.

She ended up redoing the transaction and giving us the coupon book.  I asked her about our other purchase and she said that I had to go back to the department that I bought it.  That being about a $400.00 transaction, I thought that it would be worth it. 

We go back and the clerk apologizes as she didn’t offer the discount coupon.  She asks for my charge card and tells us that she will work on the correction.  When she returns, she makes tells me that I couldn’t qualify for the discount as the jacket was regularly priced at about $550.00 and was on sale.  She goes on to explain that she had voided the first transaction so I needed to sign another one.

When I checked online later, the two transactions were still not credited.  Thank goodness we still have time to go back if the credit is not issued but we still will have the language problem when we try to explain what happened.

BTW, we did go to the seventh floor and got the tax back which came out to over 3000Y.

Laden with two huge shopping bags, we went on to Nishikii Market.  We first go to JJ’s Yuzu store and she tells me that we should return later so we don’t have to carry it around.  Further down, we see some of the half dried Kaki that she loves.  She asks if they are Japan products and the man tells her that there are two varieties and which prefecture in Japan they are from.  Since that type of Kaki is so hard to find, we end up buying all those that meet her high quality standards of color and tenderness.  They pack it in a box and even put a handle on it!  But now, in addition to the two huge bags, I have a boxful of Kaki to carry (and my camera bag too).

We were also looking for a salt container with a little bamboo spoon like we saw in the Izakaya.  The first one, which was about 2100Y, looked too plain for the cost.  We find a larger variety at another store but now, the only nice one is 4000Y.  But, it actually cost us only 1000Y as we got back 3000Y from Daimaru, right?

We then stumble across a Tsukemono store.  The problem there was, everything tastes great so it’s really hard to choose.  JJ ends up buying about a dozen packages to add to our already over burdened load.

More stops at a couple of Tea shops and we are all done shopping.  We decided to eat lunch at a restaurant closer Daimaru that had roast beef bowls.  I was carrying so much, my body space was probably equivalent to a 300 lb. person!  I often had problems negotiating narrow, crowed spaces getting back to our hotel.

We found the restaurant, which we find out started in Kyushu and features their version of Wagyu beef.  Upon entering, the waiter helps me put all of my bags on the seat.  He then tells us that they have two items for lunch, the roast beef bowl and a beef stew bowl.  So we order two of the roast beef bowls and a beer.  We ask him if they have Yuzu soda and he says “no” and brings us the drink menu.  While looking over the drink menu, I see that they have a lot of other items ranging from short ribs to beef intestines.  I ask him about them and he says they are also available for lunch.

We wait for our meal and I even order another beer.  Another waiter politely refills JJ’s water several times.  After a long wait (which we didn’t mind as we needed to rest), I asked our waiter about our food.  It turns out that I think that he thought that after I saw the full menu, we were going to change our order.  The roast beef bowls quickly came out after that and it was huge.  In the bottom of the bowl, there was a mound of hot rice, a raw egg yolk, a bed of raw veggies, then roast beef slices layered in a circle.  The meal was too huge so my taste buds again got overwhelmed.  I ALMOST HAD TO force myself to finish it.  JJ said she was so full, she couldn’t eat even one more slice.  I always try to eat all of any meat dish (or take it home) as I feel that the animal died for me to eat it.  I’m sure that cow would rather I eat Tofu for protein but that is the way of nature’s food chain.  However, there have been times that I felt the poor animal died for nothing as the chef managed to completely ruin the dish, like the lobster I ate at the Waikoloa Hilton.

As we ate a late lunch, JJ agreed to forgo dinner and eat the singing noodles later.  After we got back, she went for her Onsen and massage while I enjoyed a few well earned Asahi’s.  She woke me up at about 9:00 and we enjoyed one of the best prepared Ramen, ever.  The noodles were cooked perfectly, and the flavor of the dashi blended perfectly the marriage of noodles, takenoko, nori and green onions.  It was really out of this world!!

JJ comes up with some pretty good comebacks every so often.  The other day, she asks me to close the curtains so she can dress sitting down on the bed.  I tell her, “who would want to watch a 68 year old woman get dressed?”.  She replies, “a 70 year old man”.  I’m still laughing at this one.

Saturday, 1/24

Wow, what a day!!  Actually, what a GREAT DAY!!

Some of the breakfast items are getting a bit tiring so I am venturing and trying new foods, mostly Japanese type side dishes.  One of those was a pickled mini-mushroom with I don’t know what else.  At first, it was interesting but soon the overpowering flavor of vinegar was a bit much.  But, since the portions are small, it’s ok.

JJ experimented a blend of espresso and regular coffee and she like it.  It’s a bit too strong for me so I stuck with the regular.  While poring the shoyu on my egg, I realized that shoyu in Japan is always light colored as compared to our in Hawaii.  I’ve always thought of light colored shoyu as being “low salt”.

We were watching a little of Massan and JJ tells me that the voices are really distorted.  I tell her it’s an idiot a few tables from us talking on his cell phone.  The guy was so clueless that he even had it on speakerphone.  I was waiting (hoping) that one of the Dormey Inn staff would say something but I guess in Japan, they expect people to police themselves.  If it happens tomorrow, I may go up and politely tell him to lower his volume.  He seemed to speak Spanish but was interestingly with an oriental looking woman. 

JJ thought that the Toji Temple flea market was today so our plan was to visit it, then go to Nara after that for the fire festival.  Like most great plans, there is always a little bug.  They didn’t have the flea market today.  She asked the info center and she was told that it was on the 21^st of January, which was Wednesday.  How you figgah?

According to the bus route map, the bus makes a complete loop back to Kyoto station.  But, we saw the same # 208 bus going back to the station on the other side of the street so I wondered if they had busses running in two directions from the terminal or was the bus route map wrong and it actually turned around at the end.  Being curious and having some time, I told JJ that I wanted to see if we could catch the bus back to the station at the stop that we got off to go to the Toji Temple flea market.  So, we waited, and waited, and waited.  Finally, this guy come up and asks us where we want to go.  I tell him Kyoto Ekimae and my “Nihongo Wakarimasen”.  He tries to explain (we think) that we need to go across the street to catch the bus to the station or to catch the Keihan train, which will be a lot faster.

We follow his advice, cross the street,  a bus arrives within a few minutes and go to the main station.  Once we get there, we decide to pick up sandwiches at Lawson’s and eat in our room, then catch the train to Nara.  My Asahi and the Ham sandwich was a winner.  JJ’s ham and fried egg sandwich was not too bad either.

We bundled up in our cold weather gear in anticipation of the low temps at night in Nara.  Purchasing the tickets and catching the train was a easy.  Once we got to Nara, we asked the visitor info how to get to the festival.  They say it’s a twenty minute walk but it’s actually a bit more.  The walk was quite enjoyable until a deer stole and ate my map.  It took about 5 people to get the map back from that deer.  Seems like deer are like goats and eat anything.

We stopped for an ice cream for JJ and a Asahi for me, more to rest than to eat.  A deer come up to JJ and wants her ice cream.  He was really good at begging and we end up buying deer food for him. 

Upon arriving at the viewing area, we got lucky as some people were just vacating one of the few benches in the area.  As the sun was getting lower, the air was getting steadily colder and the wind speed a bit higher.  Before the sun had set, we were in our full cold weather gear.  It was so cold, I opened our last foot warmer and JJ use hers to warm her hands and I used mine to sit on.  BRRRRRR!!

I decided to see what kind of foods were being offered at the food stalls.  I found Zenzai for JJ and a Chicken, Pork onion soup for me.  My soup was perfect if you love green onions but for both of us, the warmth from the soups made up for any deficiencies they may have had.

The opening ceremony was really slow.  But once it was over, wow!!  Aerial fireworks literally erupted and scalded the night with vivid reds, blues, and greens.  The show was literally the frosting on the cake as we never expected anything like that.  We were so close and could feel the concussion of each explosion.

The burning of the hill was almost an anti-climax after enjoying the fireworks display.   Still, just this event makes me want to come back next year.  The Japanese people are so awesome as we never saw or heard any belligerent person.  Talk about peace and harmony.

Walking back to the train station was another unusual experience.  There were so many people that the city actually closed some of the roads so the thousands of people could use the road to walk back to the train stations.  We reached the station at about 7:30.  I expected a long and confused line at the train station to buy the tickets and ride the train.  In spite of the large crowd, everything was under control and it seems as though they added extra trains to accommodate the crowd.

After reaching Kyoto, we decided to skip dinner as it was about 8:34 so it was close to ramen time at the Dormey Inn.  JJ wanted to go to the Onsen to soothe her aching muscles so after 2 Asahi’s, we finally made it down.  There seems to be another  Chinese tour as the dining room was crowded.  We got #70 & 71 and the cook was prepping numbers in the 50’s.  It seems that every time there is a large crowd, the noodles are not cooked perfectly.  Again, the texture showed that the water temp was not hot enough when he started cooking it.

When we used to own GMM, I used to eat saimin everyday for breakfast.  Sometimes I would be in a rush and start cooking the noodles before the water was at a full boil.  That is how I learned of the trick of cooking noodles properly.  I’m not saying that it works for all noodles but it’s definitely true for saimin noodles.

By the time we went to sleep, it was about 10:30 to 11:00.  Being a healthy, robust senior, I wasn’t even feeling tired.  However, I did wake up at about 2:20 and decided to try and go back to sleep, otherwise I may get done for the day at 5:00 p.m.  Luckily, I woke up at about 5:30 a.m.

I bought a pastry at Lawson’s last night for a breakfast snack while waiting for JJ to waken in the morning.  I saw what I thought was a grape filled one, next to the too sweet strawberry one that I bought before.  Fooled me, it wasn’t grape, it was red beans!  Good thing JJ didn’t eat her musubi that she bought.

For those of you who may go to the Nara Fire Festival, it is definitely worthwhile to make the trip.  In the viewing area, there are no bad seats.  If you get lucky, you will find a bench to sit on.  Next time, we will bring hand warmers (we only had foot warmers this time), a portable folding stool that can be used as a foot rest in row 11 of the extra comfort seats an HawnAir, and a space blanket to put around our legs.  This is in addition to the air cushions to sit on, thermal underwear, fleece jacket, vest, jacket, scarf and thermal cap that I wore.  In lieu of the vest and fleece jacket, JJ had several layers of sleeved and sleeveless sweaters.

Just got a chance to view JJ’s videos of the fireworks.  The stills (my pics) looked good until I saw the videos.  I’ll probably use her video uncut for the slideshow.  When they first started the fireworks, we expected a short volley, like when they started the Cormorant fishing.  But this was better than anything we’ve seen in Hawaii or San Francisco.

Gotta come back.

Sunday, 1/25

I’m starting to tire of the same ole breakfast.  Tomorrow might be just chazuke, ume and tofu.

The weather was a little overcast with cool temps.  However, my fleece jacket, thermal cap and gloves were enough to keep me comfortable.

We caught the bus to Gion to look around and shop.  JJ found a lot of shops to visit and purchase omiyage.  I just enjoyed the ambiance of Gion and listened to my audiobook.  We had a really hard time finding a restaurant recommended by a friend of a friend, called Gogyu.  When we Googled it, Nishiki Mkt. was not even on the map.  It is such a popular destination that JJ and I wonder why it is not used as a reference, like Kyoto City Hall.  It was actually located less than a 100 yards from Nishiki's 2nd intersection.

Gogyu’s fame is based on their “Burnt Ramen”.  When we finally found it, we had to wait in line for about 20 minutes.  The inside of the restaurant was quite nice.  They featured several glass enclosed gardens which really gave a very tranquil ambience.  The Ramen, though was average at best.  While I enjoyed the delicate flavor of the dashi, they had a thick coat of oil floating on the top that gave the noodles a poor “mouth feel”.  Caveat, we never used my taste buds to determine flavors at George’s so don’t take my critiques too seriously whenever taste is concerned.  I think I’m close to being a “supertaster”, JJ thinks my taste buds are weird and others in the family think I’m just particular.  HYF?  After eating it, my reaction was, “I wonder why the lines were so long?”.  BTW, they have an English menu and the prices are very reasonable.

We also decided to go to Daimaru to straighten out the charge card problem.  I told JJ that if we couldn’t straighten out the problem and had to pay twice for the same jacket, I would just look at it as “I tried to fix it but given the language problem, if it ends up with us paying twice, so be it.”  I learned a while ago not to let things, especially money issues, to control my life.  A few years ago (maybe 8-10 years ago as I am a senior citizen) I lost a $500.00 chip in Vegas.  Rather than let the stupidity of carelessly losing it bother me, I said to myself “I made a mistake and I won’t let it happen again and I WILL NOT LET IT AFFECT ME”.  With this attitude, I went on to end up winning that trip.

When we get to Daimaru, we go to the floor where they handle gift cards, etc.  Basically, it is like a concierges’ desk.  I ask for an English speaking person so I can explain the problem.  The lady that I’m speaking to calls for an English speaking person.  I try and explain the problem (you have to admit, it is very complicated), show her the screenshot of the charge card transactions that show the pending charges (including the two double charges) but no credits, and after a while, she understands what happened.

The two lady’s really went out of their way to resolve my concerns.  They completely understood why I was worried and did their best to make things good.  To make a long story short, they had someone print the transactions in question and showed us that the credit was indeed being processed.  Doing this took about 30 to 45 minutes and they never showed us any attitude other than trying their best to resolve our worries.  They really mirrored my own belief that any problem with any customer is an opportunity for the business to create a truly loyal customer.  We really tried to practice this at George’s.  I now know beyond a doubt that it is really true when they say “what goes around comes around”. 

The lady helping us kept on apologizing but we kept on telling her that it was us who truly appreciated the extraordinary effort that she and the other lady were making to alleviate our worries.  And since I could “let it go” if things could not be resolved in our favor, now I have an extra $400.00 to spend on this trip!!  How you figguh????

Forgot to write about this yesterday.  At Tojii Temple, just as we were leaving, we could hear the plaintive calling of a flute.  We made our way over and to our pleasant surprise, it was a “normal person” playing that captivating melody.

Then out of the blue, this security guard tells the guy that he couldn’t play there.  Now I can understand if he was playing rock, but this was an open area and his music blended perfectly with the ambiance of the park.  Crazy old Fa……..

After enjoying a light dinner at the Izakaya, I ended up going to sleep a little later than normal.  I was so tired that I asked JJ if it was ok to skip the noodles.  I even dumped half of my Asahi!

Hasta Lavista, Baybee!!

Monday, 1/26

I keep on forgetting to mention that the massage completely solved my back pain, which felt as though my spine was compressing while we were out walking and I was carrying my heavy camera bag.  JJ however, does not feel any improvement.

Our plan today is to go to Arashiyama as they have a new shopping complex there that JJ wants to check out, then on to Gion where she wants to finish up her shopping.

Immediately after leaving the train station in Arashiyama, we found a small store that carried a variety of products, including an umbrella with a samurai sword handle.  It was too neat to pass up.

I thought that the new shopping complex was built on the old Misora Hibari Museum grounds.  When we reached there, there was still construction going on.  We continued walking and saw a shopping complex that we never saw before.  We went in and it was very hard not to buy anything from each store.  They had a great variety of vendors, from a dried baby salmon (Iriko) store to a jewelry maker   to a bamboo weaver.  After we were done shopping and walking toward the restaurant for lunch, I asked JJ if she still needed to go to Gion and thankfully, she said “no”.

BTW, the name of the complex is “Arashiyama Shoryuen”.

We enjoyed our lunch at the same restaurant that we went to this past summer with David and Janet.  Talk about memory lapses.  I thought that the restaurant was near where we got off the boat but it is actually located very close to the Togetsukyo Bridge.  As we were eating our cubes of beef, I noticed JJ looking around.  I asked her what she was looking for and she tells me that she wants to ask our waitress for salt.  I say “what, it’s already on the slightly salty side”.  I guess I convinced her that she did not need more salt.

The weather today was nice in the morning when we left for Arashiyama but it started to shower lightly, soon after we left the shopping complex.  The samurai umbrella sure came in handy.  Visiting Japan in January enabled us to shop and window shop much more as we did not spend time sightseeing.  All in all, it was a good trip and the great thing is we are leaving with a feeling that we should have stayed a bit longer rather than leave when we are eager to be home.  But every time I see my overstuffed camera bag, I can’t help but think of Tomasu, the Taisho Cat.

Our plan tomorrow is to check out after breakfast, ask the hotel to store our bags, then go to Daimaru to drop off Chocolate Mac Nut candy and Hawaii calendars to the two ladies at Daimaru who helped us so much. 

We might go to Nishiki for last minute shopping or to eat lunch at the Unagi/Sushi Restaurant.

To all of you, thanks for “listening” and emailing back.  Until our next trip, our best wishes to you all.

PS:  While the samurai umbrella did come in handy yesterday when it rained, it is too long to pack into our suitcase of duffel bag.  It’ll be fun to see TSA’s reaction.

Epilogue 

We spent the last day dropping off omiyage to the ladies at Daimaru who really helped to ease our minds with the credits and charges on our card.

we then went to Nishiki for lunch but the roast beef bowl restaurant was closed.  As we were at the other end of Nishiki, we decided to visit Gogyo again to try their shio ramen.

Being a working day, we were seated immediately.  We both thought that the shio ramen, while better than the burnt shoyu ramen, still left a lot to be desired.  The noodles used were really thin, like somen noodles.  The dashi was a bit salty and bold but then again, it was shio ramen.

The extra comfort section had only 5 seats taken out of the 24 seat section.  When we got home, there was a message on our phone that Hawaiian was going to take my suggestion and offer something to the platinum members.  However, when i emailed hawaiian regarding our flight, the tone of the response was not nice, even though they said they would credit us the $100.00 ea.  I emailed them back and told them that we thought that a fee of $25.00 was fair for a reserved seat and that we would be satisfied with a $50.00 credit in lieu of the $100.00 offered but they have not responded.

The flight back was really great as the flight attendants were super attentive.  Jj tried to sleep in a whole row but only managed to sleep fitfully.  We ate lunch in honolulu and would you believe that it was at a japanese restaurant?

For the first time, Tomasu came out to the car to greet us and meow.  CT is fine too so now I feel that we should have stayed a couple of days more.  How you figguh?

It was a really good trip and are looking forward to the next one in April.  For you pc people, the link to our slideshow follows.  For you apple people, I'm going to try Vimeo to see if that works.

Here is the Vimeo link:  https://vimeo.com/118344652