Day 3 - Kyoto Imperial Palace

Posted on April 26, 2008
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Japan, Holidays |

Heading off fairly early again on foot, we decided to find the Nishiki Markets on our way to the Imperial Palace.

Ever notice that distances on a map never look quite as far as they really are? Even with your ratio [————-] = 1 kilometre. It still seems closer than what it really is.

W popped into quite a few little shrines along the way (that we never would have seen had we bussed everywhere) and finally reached Daihatsu where we did a little girly shopping - hey, what’s a vacation without shopping? Some make-up and hair accessories later, and a browse through the Nishiki Markets, we took our time wandering through the Imperial Gardens, taking photos and searching endlessly for a bathroom with a western style toilet.

The true test of how badly you need to pee lies in deciding whether you have to use a Japanese toilet..LOL

Thankfully Mos Burger (Japan’s answer to Hungry Jacks) is fully equiped for western tourists both facility-wise and food-wise. Filled with burgers and melon soda (Yum!) we continued our walking tour of all the little local shrines before heading back to the hostel for a wee rest before dinner.

Stupidly thinking we’d dress up a bit, Sandy and I donned our heels and headed off by metro to Ponto-Cho, the night-life spot in Kyoto. Little did we know that Ponto-Cho is mostly cobblestone (Arg!) AGONY of the feet after another day of 15+ km of walking.

Did I mention that I had Plantar Fascia in BOTH feet? For those of you out there who are not podiatrists, that is a torn tendon in the feet. It feels like you are standing on bruised heels all the time and it particularly excruciating early morning, late at night and after lots of walking…I digress.

We were looking for a restaurant with an english menu and saw one that had pizza on it not far down the alley. Sandy is allergic to fish so that limited our choices. Pizza sounded good so we headed inside the Italian restaurant with a french name ( I forget what the name was but remember it was french) in Japan.

Inside was tiny …and empty except for 1 guy in jeans and a T-shirt smoking a fag.  A little concerned, Sandy and I breifly discussed how to leave politely but woulnd up sitting down for fear of hurting the guys feelings. We braced ourselves with fuzzy navels and proceeded to order.

“We’ll share a pizza.” I said confidantly. He started walking away. * Second thoughts* “Wait!” I called, “What’s on it?”  I had realized there was no listing of ingredients on the menu.

In stilted english he replied “Onions, capsicum, mushrooms, olives, cheese…” and with a flourish worthy of a french waiter in a 5 star restaurant, he wisks what looks to be a dish towel off of a leg of ham on a wooden chopping block, complete with big bite mark out of it as he says “and raw ham!”

Sandy and I control the urge to flee quite impressively and I change my order to steak. At least if that’s not cooked through, I can eat it! (I like my steak rare.)

Then, the waiter’s face lit up. “Vegetarian?” he suggests. “Yes,thank you!!” we both agree.

And thus begins one of the best dinning experiences we had in Japan.

Food…great! ( We wound up with both steak and pizza, both delicious.)
Atmosphere…cozy and friendly
Company…superb
After hobbling home, wincing and complaining laughingly the whole way we played cards in the common room with some fellow aussie travellers (Andrew & Brandon) to the wee hours of the night and then slept like logs in our bunks. This was the night we discovered the heating in the room…lol

 

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