Kaiyoubi Kyoto ni

The forecast was for rain today, but there was some sun when we awoke. We decided to visit an internet cafe (our hotel lacks internet access for some reason) and do some shopping in Kyoto. We have photos. On the way to the cafe, we stopped in a wood-block print shop, where an old Japanese man showed us a number of prints he had collected and restored. It was interesting, and we ended up buying a landscape print made in 1862 by Higashime II (son-in-law of Higashime the elder, another wood-block artist). We chatted (sort of) a bit about how he repaired the prints, patching wormholes and cleaning stains.

A walk away from the shopping arcade brought us to a quiet street, where we found Lulu ("ruru"?), a funky studenty internet cafe on the second floor of a house. The house special was Loco Moco (aka "roko-moko"), a rice dish with a fried egg, hamburger patty, and gravy of our choice. We got one chilli ("takosu") and one beef stew, and they were tasty. Then we spent a couple rainy hours checking our email and updating our blog and photos. For much of the time we were the only ones in the place, and the Hawaiian radio station kept us entertained. ("Vote NO on the private property referrendum!")

In the midst of a torrential downpour, we decided to try some more shopping. Our "Old Kyoto" book demanded that we look for a fan (sensu) shop nearby, and when we couldn't find the one in the book, we wandered into another one. It was obviously a family business, with an old man constructing the fans in the shop, hammering away to attach the wooden sticks to the paper (maybe). A young woman (either his daughter or wife, we didn't ask) showed us a number of beautiful fans. He told us he was busy making fans for cherry blossom season, and many of the fans we saw (per our request) had sakura or ume (plum blossom) themes. There was also a young kid there getting into mischief. The store was a lot of fun, and it was interesting to talk to them about fans, as far as we could.

After that we wandered around the shopping arcade, buying some cinnamon sweets (a Kyoto special, nikki), looking at $2000 knives, and trying to find some good Engrish T-shirts. One of the teenage sales clerks tried out his English on me in an attempt to get me to buy ("T-shirt good, yes? Today cold, yes? Rain too.") and I answered him in Japanese. ("Hai, ii desu yo. Hai, samui desu neh. Demo kino wa ataka...ataka...atataka? Hmm.") It was a bit odd. The $2000 knife shop was interesting, in that a lot of the merchandise was hand-made, with the craftsman hammering away at things in the back. We managed to escape without purchasing an illegal carry-on. At a sweet shop, we bought some local favorites, tsukimochi or moon cakes. We just ate them, and they were tasty.

For dinner we went to a place serving Kyoto home-style cooking (obanzai-ryouri or possibly kyo-ryouri). We sat at the counter, much like the kushikatsu place of the night before, although this place was much more crowded with locals. (Lots of salarimen, lots of drinking, especially for a Tuesday, so it's clear we found a good local place.) The menu was completely unintelligible, probably even for the Japanese customers, but the counter was lined with large bowls containing the possible choices. So we pointed and asked questions and ordered things like fish, dumplings, and matzoh balls (that's what they looked like, anyway). It was sort of like Spanish tapas, with little dishes of lots of different stuff. We had some little grilled fish, head, skin and all; some kinki, which looked like red snapper, but smaller; dumplings; a tasty, fat-covered, cured pork in broth; and various vegetable and tofu dishes. Some beer and sake, and we entertained the locals for a little while.