Ok, so this post will be written about a week after these events occurred, but hey, I still wanted to document our travels, so here I am, sitting during parent/teacher conferences, trying to transport myself back in time one week, while keeping one eye out for approaching parents and their middle school children.... I'm probably in good shape, though, since very few Korean parents are actually interested in stopping by the Drama teacher's table....
So here we go, back to Kyoto.
We woke up on Wednesday, our last full day in Kyoto, to an absolutely beautiful morning- clear, dry, and, as the day progressed, extremely hot. As Aliana took her morning nap, I set out to grab breakfast. This has become our morning routine (if 2 days in a row can constitute routine?)
But first, a little backstory: sitting on the bullet train on our way to Kyoto on Monday, Mike turned to me and said, "Have you ever been to New Orleans?" (even after 3+ years, we're still learning about each other) After I responded in the negative, he went on: "All I want right now is a cafe au lait from the Cafe du Monde". (and proceeded to expound on the bit of heaven that is an au lait from the Cafe du Monde) "You have to get one someday- they are incredible- the perfect combination of creamy and sweet and wonderful goodness" (ok, so I may be paraphrasing here, but it went something like that) And then we got off the train and there it was: in the middle of the Kyoto Station. A little bit of New Orleans in Japan... a Cafe du Monde. Coincidence? I think not. God is good and knew that we could use whatever pickmeups we could get after another night in bed with our 7-month-old.
So needless to say, we'd both been dreaming about our cafe au laits... it had become our morning routine. So I went off to get our coffees and incredible pastries from one of the many bakeries in the station (and drop about $25 in the process, but again, who's counting?) and brought them back to our hotel room. We indulged while Aliana slept.
Looks good, right? Yeah. They were. And each day, more pastries found their way into our hotel room. I definitely could use one right now, sitting in this gym under the florescent bulbs listening to the teachers around me try to explain how a B+ in the 6th grade does not mean that your child's academic career is over.
Meanwhile, back in Kyoto...
Once Aliana woke ready to face this beautiful day, we headed out to hop on a bus to the Golden Pavilion. Apparently everyone else touring Kyoto had the same idea and decided to hop on the same bus, so we somehow found room enough to stand, (although Mike and Aliana eventually got offered a seat) and we remained on that sweaty bus for the next 45 minutes. Eventually we and the rest of the bus riders got coughed at our stop and we followed the crowds toward the Golden Pavilion. It was beautiful and photo-worthy, so here are some shots.
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| Jeez, Aliana, I've got it. Point taken. Your arms look better than mine. (You'd think that after 7 months of carrying this chunk around, they'd look better...) |
We did some (very quick) sight-seeing around the Golden Pavilion, but Aliana wasn't so into it. She really wanted to eat. As. soon. as. was. humanly. possible. And we looked for a bench, but the closest we could come to that was a (pricey) red cloth and umbrella/green tea and tea cakes break. We thoroughly enjoyed our overpriced tea. And Aliana loved her milk. And all of the attention from everyone else who was also enjoying overpriced tea.
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| The tea was in the dark bowls. Pea-green and frothy. Mike thought the teacakes tasted just like Peeps. And that our tea stop was a bit like Easter. I thought they were a lot better than Peeps. |
After leaving the Golden Pavilion, we spent quite a bit of time searching for the bus that would take us to our next stop: The Bamboo Forest. Friends of ours had been to Japan just last year and had some great pics of the bamboo, so we decided we needed to see it for ourselves. We eventually found the right bus traveling in the correct direction, changed to another bus in the middle of nowhere and finally ended up in (what I think was) the Sagano-Arashiyama area... By the time we got out of the bus, we were all exhausted, starving and ready for lunch. We wandered in the heat from restaurant to restaurant, (searching for one where you could eat on the floor so we could put Aliana down for a nap while we ate...?) but when, after about 10 minutes of crying she finally just gave up and fell asleep in my arms as we rushed from place to place with the sweat dripping down our backs, we figured it was time to just enter any restaurant that had the a/c blasting. We found one, I nursed Aliana back to sleep, (and as I was doing so, the woman waiting on us was curious as to what was going on under my hooter-hider so she nearly took it off me...) When Aliana was asleep again, we put some chairs together, laid her down, ordered our cold soba noodles and let the cool air dry our sweat.
We spent a lot of time in that little 5-table restaurant, waiting for Aliana to finish her nap, and enjoyed every minute. We even felt adventurous enough to try out a dish that we saw another woman eating for desert. It was basically like a large green-tea snowcone topped with red beans. Hey, don't knock it til you've tried it. Beans and snowcones. Who knew?
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| yum. |
We felt like we had to whisper as we walked down the path...
...but then reality set back in and we had to find another place to change Aliana... which this time ended up being on the ground.
And while Mike changed her, I stalked some beautiful women in stunning kimonos.
We then headed back into town and found another fabulous sashimi and tempura dinner, and Mike took off to see Crazy For You in Japanese. To his disappointment, he was not called up on stage during the tap number. Aliana and I headed home and to bed.
All in all, a great last full day in Japan.
