Fast Food is Best Food

I decided yesterday to try and relax a little bit and hit up some things a little closer to me after the previous days massive amount of walking.  I left at around 10:30 and started heading North to the Imperial Palace and Gyoen Park.  I stopped at a 7 eleven and got some of their chicken cups.  Its like 5 chicken nuggets that are definitely above our gas station standards, but below KFC.  Pricepoint is a buck fifty though so really hard to beat.  I also got a cold BOSS coffee so I could feel like a BOSS.  After eating the chicken and sipping some drink I continued on my way.  

I realized I underlayered for today.  The temp wouldn't have been so bad but it was overcast and very windy.  Probably was around 47ish degrees F.  

I made it to the Imperial Gyoen Park that surrounds the palace after about an hour walk.  Even though it was gloomy out it was still  erh pretty.  The palace is an optional residency of the emperor and the park has long wide open gravel lanes for the motorcade to drive in.  There was a large blooming Sakura blooming that was drawing in people for photos.  There's always at least one girl in a rental Kimono near them taking pictures.  

When I got up to the palace I found out it was closed.  There were police by the side entrance and a sign that showed it will be closed for the week.  People were taking in supplies for a truck parked there.  Sooo the darn emperor had to come today and stay for my duration in Kyoto.  Then I'll go to Tokyo where his other palace is and they'll  be like ohhh you can't go in the emperor is visiting.  Oh well.

Afterwards headed to Starbucks to sit some more.  I was making a looping path to the northeast.  Had a fun back and forth in japanese with the guy who made my drink.  In retrospect it went like this:
Heres the english menu
I dont need an English menu thanks
Oh ok
*place order, getting drink*
Are you here on work?
Excuse me?
Are you here on work?
Yes *i am not
What company to you work for?
I came to America! 
*other worker almost spits out his drink laughing*
*I walk away with drink confused and alalyzing the conversation*

After watching people feed ducks and some hawks diving into the river from my Starbucks seat I headed out again into the cold.  As i walked further out I came across the Museum of Kyoto, not to be confused with th Kyoto National Museum.  I went inside to get warm and enjoy some museum time.  It was 5 bucks for their permanent e hibit, I decided to pass on the special exhibit.  The museum is about the history of Kyoto specifically.  After looking through the first few pieces I noticed the english language section of the descriptions were pretty sparse.  There were like 3 paragraphs in Japanese, and in English would say "This pot was used to hold goods, sake, or even the deceased. 800ad".  So it was still ok but felt I was missing a lot.

At that point an older museum curator came over and in english said I looked like I was interested in Kyoto history, and I said yes I was very interested.  He started walking with me and answering my questions about items, giving me way more info, and reading the Japanese text.  It was very nice.  After the main exhibit I thanked him and went on to the next two.

The first exhibit had been the general history of Kyoto, the 2nd was around the Gion festival.  Gion is the Geisha district, although they're called Geiko in Kyoto specifically.  During the annual festival there are parades of floats, some dating back a long time.  In this exhibit they had a bunch of the float designs and decorations on display.

The final exhibit was a collection of artifacts and pottery dating back to 3000 ad.  It was about a Kyoto middle school.  The reason was that in the 50's, students at that school were the ones that unearthed the objects in one of their afterschool clubs, like and archaeology club.  They would dig up the items, mark where they found them, and catog them.  Pretty impressive.

After that I headed back to the guesthouse to relax some more.  After an hour of that I put on my jacket, hat, and gloves and headed out again.  I went East towards Gion.  On my way I had to pass through the Nishiki food market.  It was super crowded as this area is very touristy.  There were a lot of souvenir shops and sake places, street food including little red octopuses on sticks.  I didn't hang around, most foot travel flows very well here but it was pretty bad there. 

Around dusk I was at Gion.  The crowds were pretty heavy with many many female tourists wearing rental kimonos (there are a lot of these nearby). Gion itself is very pretty, although its watered down since its such a tourist draw.  Its filled with traditional restaraunts, some of which are teahouses that can be booked for bug money to have a geiko entertain your group.  Geisha spotting is a big deal, where people are hoping to spot one.  During my couple laps I did see 2 Maiko.  They're Geiko in training.  The way to tell them from Geiko is that they wear the flower patterened and bright colored Kimonos where Geiko wear plain Kimono.  The way to tell them from tourists is they were the full white makeup, and more importantly are alone.  I didn't take a picture because I didn't want to be a creeper, they probably get enough of that, and they also have these great anti stalking signs.  I did take a picture of that.

After Gion i stopped by Ponoto-Cho alley.  Similar to Gion its known for its preserved architecture.  Irs long as it turns out and completely filled with expensive eateries.  It was about rhis point, or a little before in Gion that I realized I hadn't eaten anything.  I walked past all the restaraunts and looked at their menus, the plastic food displays, and everything was like 35 to 40 bucks.  Maybe I'd get Shabushabu tonight, and then I though naw Im too hungry to waste good food on.  That's when it clicked, I needed Sukiya! 

Sukiya is like the burger king of Japan.  They serve Gyudon (meat on rice) bowls.  There was one just down the way.  Their basic medium bowl is 3.50 for meat, rice, onion, but I kicked it up a notch choosing the one for 4.50 that's covered in sliced green onions and a raw egg.

The egg comes out to you whole with a dish and separator for the egg white as its only the yolk most people want.  It was really good and just what I wanted.  The yolk didnt have that much flavor but made the rice taste thicker and more savory.  The employees there also have to wear those dopey hats that youd see at old time fast food that look like newsie or cabbie hats.

After that I headed back, talked to Nori about what I saw, watched a little yotube, and hit the hay.

This was a guy in a suit in the park combing a stray cat, with a comb.  The cat was loving it.