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I met Kotaro an Noriko in the hotel lobby to check out at about 0900 before making our way to Starbucks for my first real coffee since arriving here, now last night we had consumed our fair share of drinks at the bar and my head was not quite feeling up to the task but the coffee had me in my normal head space in no time.
Now when some one says to you lets go and have a look at some temples I for some reason thought we would drive up and park look at them and then leave, I hate to say it but I actually walked up hill to see the first one, I dont normally do walking but on this occasion it was well worth the walk. Looking at the work put into these building some 400 years ago its amazing to see the engineering accomplishments of the people in this era.
The road to the temple is full of shops that sell goods local to the area, along the walk I found plenty of food
and drink to keep me going including a cinnamon kind of doughnut that was filled with vanilla custard, it was like nothing else I had eaten and I could have quite happily sat there just eating them all day but had to keep moving to catch everything that was on display.
The road to the temple is full of shops that sell goods local to the area, along the walk I found plenty of food
The walk back down the hill was much more to my liking as I carry enough weight for momentum without having to worry about climbing. We left the temple and then headed to the 400 year old Nijo castle that remains very unchanged since it was built in 1603 as the official residence of the Tokugawa Shogun. It was finally completed in 1626 under the control of the third Shogun. In 1867 the 15th Tokugawa Shogun returned sovreignty to the Emporor and became the property of the imperial family. This Castle was donated to the City of Kyoto in 1939 and has been a popular tourist location since that time. Very cool place.
Hungry after all the walking and hangover we stopped at a curry house for a quick feed need to keep the energy levels up with one more temple to go. Another short walk up yet
another hill we arrived at a temple that was by far the coolest one of the day, this one was covered in Gold, looked awesome with the sun bouncing off it and just when I thought that was it we continued along the track passing many old ceremonial buildings until we came to a clearing where I tried a traditional tea and sweet that that would have been part of a tea ceremony back in the day and I must say it was bloody awful.
By now we were all fairly shagged so it was time to make the journey back to Tanabe for dinner, we arrived at the office of Gan Craft for a much needed coffee. It was now dinner time and the suggestion was that we should head to Syraku for a feed. This is my fave restaurant in Japan, the people here are simply
awesome and cater to my heavy meat dietary wants, I did try a fish egg block that had a layer of nori roll sandwiched in the middle, I was lucky that I had beer on hand to wash it down with - yuk...
All in all today was awesome and I am looking forward to what tomorrow brings.
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