Sunday - a rainy day

We got up very relaxed today - it was predicted to be rainy, so we thought it would be a good day for the museum we purposely didn’t go in on the first day - it is opposite the 1000 gold Buddha temple, but saved it for a rainy day! It was only drizzling when we left after breakfast, but by the time we got off the bus it was teeming. I think Amr and I were the only people we saw in raincoats...the Japanese seem to just use umbrellas, so they can maintain their immaculate and groomed look! Umbrellas are provided everywhere - hotels etc, and at the museum we used one just to get from the ticket office to the entrance (it was serious rain by then). It is the Kyoto National Museum, and has a large collection of art and pieces that they rotate from time to time - today the main exhibits were closed, and there was a special exhibition of the work of Ike no Taiga, who was very famous and lived in the beginning of the 1700s. It was a huge exhibit of beautiful work...calligraphy, screens, fans...and I was glad the rest was not open as I wouldn’t have taken more in anyway. There was a place where we were invited in to do some finger painting - the artist had done much of his work with fingers and perfected it - and they had a workshop letting people try having a go!! Fun (they are so polite with our squiggles!)...

After the museum we had planned to continue on to another part of town to have a wander and a look, but even Amr suggested that we call it a day - go back to the room, do some washing, read kindles and have the afternoon off!! Such an excellent plan. So we made our way back, stopped in the huge station shopping mall to buy another bottle of the Portuguese wine we had enjoyed, some sweet treats (Amr is addicted to the green tea pastries) and we queued up at the dumpling shop in the station just opposite our hotel - there is always a long queue there, they are so good - freshly made as you watch - pork dumplings, shrimp dumplings, gyozas, pork buns..so that was our lunch, by then about 3 o’clock, the washing is done and all well. Amr entrusted me to the washing amazingly as he wanted to have a sortie to a big electronic store (near the station) a sort of enormous JB HiFi, which I would find totally boring...so we are all happy!

I again forgot to start with an account of last night’s dinner. Again we hit the jackpot, in fact Amr says it is the best so far. We had passed it each evening, and it always looked full and we had doubts of getting in. It has many vegetables featured in the window, and a sign saying fresh from farm to table or something similar, and we thought it was a vegetarian place, but looked fun and we wanted to try. So we went, and got in straight away, 2 seats left at the bar which was best as we watched all that was happening, and formed a relationship with the chefs! It was absolutely vibrant...I don’t think anyone else was over 40, and we were the only non Japanese, but they had an English menu of sorts, and were very helpful. And it certainly wasn’t vegetarian....they just go for fresh ingredients...we had burdock which we had never heard of, but is a crunchy root, we had it pickled, with duck and spice, a sardine dish (the sardine was one huge sardine by our standards, stuffed with cod roe), a rice pot to die for....we hope to take Carole and John there....hope they will cope with 4 old guijen!!

No pics from today, but I will put up a few more from yesterday....we are SO lucky that yesterday was our garden day - it was perfect weather and would have been miserable today.Læs mere