New friends in old places

05112016

Waking up at our AirBnB, we ate our leftover drunk munchies, and headed north to the imperial palace and Niko castle.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Imperial_Palace

Kyoto, for quite a while was the imperial capital of Japan. Like the entire Edo period (1600ish to 1870ish). After the Meiji restoration the capital was moved to Tokyo, but the ceremonies for the enthronements took place here.

The outside walls and one if the entrances. There were 4 gates, one on each face, and the south gate was exclusively used by the emperor.

Admittedly but very good pictures of the art in the waiting rooms. As people were waiting for an audience with the emperor, they and their attendants would be put in one of these rooms, based on position/title.

That's the actual throne under there, can't see it, but the signage assured me it was there. Most people seeking audiences with the emperor would already from this area, across the courtyard, and between the cherry and Mandarin trees, I don't know which tree is which, im sure you could ask a dendrologist.

This is where all the ceremonies would take place, any religious suicide or some such that the emperor had to oversee/participate would happen here.

It's not clear whether there would be any audience, and if there was, who it would be.

Some of the gardens, attached to the household. Honestly more interesting than all the obviously manicured gardens of Western Europe. The water features, and moss, and ancient trees really built the imperial atmosphere.

And then other pictures from around the grounds.

After the imperial palace, we intended to go to Nijo Castle ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nijō_Castle ) but we were getting hungry, and they wanted 600 yen a head. Knowing we are going Himeji, we can save our money for the big castle.

Laura had found a well reviewed curry place in the area, deep in a residential neighborhood. We found the physical location Pretty easily, mainly by following our noses.

But it was closed, for the in between lunch and dinner prep.

So we toddled off. Laura descended into the hangrys and wet luckily find a good ramen/tsukumen place. They had Tan Tan which is a spicy sesame based soup, which is originally Chinese, but the Japanese have bastardized it fit centuries into this.

Mine was great, number two noodle soup I've had behind the fantastic rang in Ueno. This was very similar, and I think the spicy sesame is a good direction to start my search for similar meals.

We took a route back that put us through Higashi temple.

We went back to the AirBnB for a nap, and went back to the French expat bar because they had live music.

We took the train, making use of our rail passes, got the the PARTY area, and picked up some beers from the store for street drinks, because that's cool here.

Built in the 1890s, after a fire destroyed of the previous buildings that had been built over the centuries. Apparently the main temple is of of the largest wooden structures in the world. The timbers where hoisted by ropes of human hair, I guess cause other ropes of the period were not up to the job.

This is the first one we got to go inside. The floor is tatami, and there is a seperation between the devotees and the monks, and behind the monks a wall that I'm guessing had all the shrines and stuff in. Without a guide, and given that pictures of holy stuff is frowned on, o can only speculate what treasures are behind there.

We then set off to find the F.S.N. bar again.


https://m.facebook.com/chezphilippefsn/

Walking right on the alley that it is on, not once, not twice, but three times before we finally saw it again.

We joked that his sign disappeared; turns out it did. Philippe thinks it was stolen by drunkards.

Unfortunately the delay of getting lost meant we missed the show, but hung out and chatted with Philippe and that guy whose name we didn't know. This time we had all kinds of questions about Gion and geisha and hostesses and prostitutions, and marriage and he had alot of answers.

He is French, was an accountant, decided to travel the world, did that for 5 years, settled in Kyoto. At one time worked as a "host" in a semi-whore house frequented by very wealthy, very lonely Japanese women. And now he is a minister that marrys people.

We started getting hungry, and asked Philippe how late he would be open, and where we should eat. He said he would just make us food.

He made us curry soon, and potatoes and beans and cheese pie thing. He is a vegetarion, so cooks vegetation. Also most of the ingredients came out of his garden or that of his in-laws. So it was super fresh. It was so good.

The curry was spicy, the cheese potatos were so comforting, it was great. After eating and hanging out a little more, we headed home "early" at 2ish to get up for the train to Nara the next day.

Having now traveled to 5/7 continents and been to a number of the "corners of the globe" I can confidently say this is my favorite bar in the world. It had well price good beer, always playing good music, has neat live acts from around the world, fresh homemade healthy food, and some if the most interesting people of ever met. If you're ever in Kyoto, go here and have a drink.