After that we grabbed a taxi via the GO app and headed to Higashiyama Jisho temple northeast of us by about 15 minutes.
I picked it because I had missed in on my last Kyoto visit and it's slightly out of the way so was hoping that it wouldn't be as packed as the area around our hotel.
Luckily that turned out to be the case. Its a zen temple that was originally built as a "pleasure villa" by/for the shogun for R&R from his usual duties. It didn't elaborate on the pleasures but we know for sure he had tea there. It has a structure there called Ginkaku or Silver Pavillion. It was modeled after Kinkaku (gold Pavillion that is in the western part of Kyoto and covered with gold leaf). It was intended to have silver foil covering it but was never completed due to one of Japans many civil wars. So now its unfinished but considered an example of "wabi-sabi" sort of beauty in imperfection.
Besides the context it was a very lovely place and stroll. Moss covered woods and stone, rock and sand gardens, and several springs, one of which was used for the shogun's tea, (tasted right for it apparently) and still used for tea today.
When we finished the loop and enjoyed the wabi sabi we grabbed a couple cream puffs on the hill down. A lot of the medium to big tourist spots have nearby roads lined with knick knacks and food stands. Lots of time the food is really good, but these were just fine.
Nearby was the start of the Philosophers Path, a walkway built around 1900. In April when the cherry blossoms are out its a poppin walkway that runs along a canal. Trees line it and it's quite pretty. Now in January it's still nice and there's far fewer people. We walked it for a while and just looked around the side streets.
Had a slight appointment at 2, a shop was opening up that I'd gone to that Sarah has been jealous of for a while. We taxid out and headed to l'Outre, and Otter Cafe. Its not really a cafe, idk if the law changed in Japan but they'd given you a drink to legally make it a cafe,and then for 50 minutes you get to hang out and a couple of Otters and feed and play with them if they happen to get near you. This time was Wasabi and Oagu. Wasabi was younger and much more amicable to being touched. They have a max of 8 visitors sitting in the room and we went for 2 50min rounds. Sarah was very happy.
They rotate the Otters when they get sleepy or between days. The owner takes them home at night and there's 15 Otters total. The have a youtube channel and they're a very happy bunch and seem like they get lots of outdoor time and pools to swim in.
Very cute.
We left and looked around the area. Its by Nishiki Market which is a long covered shopping area with craft foods, food stalls, random stuff like a store you can learn to make rings.
We tried some roasted chestnuts, tea, a picked up some dried fruit. Outside of that I sunk in some money into a claw game trying to win some prizes. I didn't win anything :( Ah well.
For lunch we got some Takoyaki, blazing hot (temp) fried balls of dough with octopus, sauce, mayo, bonito. These ones were pretty good but at little more liquid than we prefer.
I had the idea to walk back to the hotel which was fine until the end. Oh yeah our hotel is on a hill, that's how it overlooks the city...
Had some cool stops along the way but we put in the steps. For dinner we saw a food hall. First 6 floors were sort of department stores, 7 & 8 had food. We decided to try a shabushabu place but we ordered the sukiyaki instead since the waitress recommended it.
Hadn't done sukiyaki before but its very good. You have a hot pot in front of you and you start with a base of meat fat, then add 2 types of broth. You add veggies and mushrooms and then cook everything including more meat in it. Sarah figured it out pretty well. You have raw egg you can dip the meat into before eating and it's super good, very savory. I made the mistake(?) of asking for a 2nd round of meat since it was all you can eat and we ordered the higher priced wagyu slices. Idk how I fit that much meat in me (great phrasing!) but I did. Sarah was already full when the plate of meat came out.
We kept on walking, meat sweat and all towards Yasaka shrine which is by the Geiko (Geisha) district. Its nice at night and fewer folks. And man public bathrooms in Japan are so good sometimes. It was chilly out and you go into a public bathroom, open the stall, and you get a pristine toilet with heated seat and all the bidet controls. Just great. Heated seat in winter is lovely.
We trudged through backstreets amd hills after that for another half hour to get back. We requested that the hotel forward our bags to the next hotel so we don't have to carry them around tomorrow. Its really common and efficient in Japan but we probably won't get then until the next day since we did it kind of late. The guy that picked them up passed us in the hall and said "good evening sir", "good evening ma'am" and looked a lot like Paul Atreides/Muad Dib from the latest Dune movies. Like suit and all, pretty funny. All the staff here is multilingual. One of the guys up front was Ivan so I assume he's there to cover Russian.
Bags out of the way we relaxed and tried to catch up more on sumo, watching a couple more days of bouts.
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