Thursday, May 09, 2019

Last Day in Kyoto

I was up at 7.30am.

Sam was up at 8.30am.

The owner wanted to know if we wanted to be dressed up in kimonos, and while I didn’t want to, Sam did. And he said yes. So, the owner is now coming over at 10am, with the kimonos, for us to dress up in and take photos. Seriously? Roll of the eye.

Sam was in the lounge room and I was in the kitchen when the old girl let herself in. I heard Sam trying to explain. I decided just to front up and present myself, so I stepped out of the kitchen and into the lounge room.

Ha ha, the old girl took one look at us two boys, clutched her pearls, and the kimono thing was off.

“Oh, oh, oh,” I think she said.

It seemed the old girl was expecting a hetro couple, of course. Surprise, surprise. So, that was the end of theat. Not that I was upset by that.

I chatted to Jill, about Bruno. We had unlimited wifi after all, so I could chat for however long. Facetime. Jill probably needed some support, or interested from us. Support, I guess. She was fine, quite confident, enthusiastic about her puppy minding skills. So, all was still good.

10.45am. We’re on our bikes and off to breakfast. Something new was in order. Funny, Japanese food being a favourite before we left and a reason for visiting Japan, the magic of which was wearing just a little thin.

11.11am. We are in Excelsior Caffe drinking coffee, on the main street at the end of our street. Lovely. Medium espresso and a medium latte and I’d spoon some of the milk from Sam’s latte to make my own macchiato.

We haven’t eaten yet, I’m getting very hungry, in fact, I’m getting the shakes. Hypoglycaemia is a bitch, although only a nuisance rather than anything more serious.

11.30am. We’re eating ramen not far from the entrance to the market, in the hubhub of all of it. In our street, actually. We must have walked passed this place lots of times without seeing it. The workers all looked a bit like they were related to each other. Father son, etc.

Midday we’re done eating.

We ride out of the city along the Duck River the botanical gardens is our destination. The river ride is gorgeous, the track easy. It took us an hour, I guess.

1.45pm.we’re at the botanical gardens, there’s a Rolls Royce Phantom parked out the front. But you have to buy an admission ticket, what? Pay to get into the gardens? Really? Nyr, why pay when we have great gardens back home, so we decide to keep riding.

We turn around and ride back along the river but on the other side. There are lots of people out on their bikes, being a bike city, I guess, that is hardly surprising. We meet up with some grandmas on their bikes who are having difficulty lifting them over a metal barrier. We help them out, they laugh and giggle, not being able to speak the same languages what else can they do.

2.50pm. We’re lying on the banks of the Duck River. It is overcast, it’s not sunny, but it is quite warm. We’ve just eaten Dorayaki (beans, sweetie) bananas and pikelets with red bean. We’re lying on a deck under a tree.

The aunties and uncles play bacci, or something like it, just along from the deck we’re lying on.

The kids come and practice their runway. Don’t know what they are practising but they are moving in a synchronised group of six.

We watch both groups lazily.

People stop on their bikes and leave their bikes unlocked as they go off and do stuff. The bikes are safe, the crime rate is low.

We laze away. We are so comfortable. We could have had a snooze there in the warm day, but we don’t actually fall asleep.

4.20pm. We left the river and headed home. We stop at Fresco buying Jill red bean pikelets, which we’ll give to her with green tea KitKats when she got home. We buy tomatoes and cucumbers, bananas and oranges.

6.30pm. We head out for dinner. We walk across the flats of Kyoto. The narrow streets, the wooden houses straight onto the street. Sliding doors. The developments, the multi-storeys, two up, three up. The cars parked, the footpathless streets where pedestrians and cars and bikes cohabitate in harmony.

We take a different route, we see shops we haven’t seen before, buildings that were new. We could have kept exploring Kyoto that is clear, but we are not unhappy to be leaving. We’d be seeing more of the same but different.

We head to the shopping centre to a recommended teppanyaki restaurant online. We have to book in, were 111, and are told there would be a 75 minute wait. We don’t wait. We walk a long a bit and pick a restaurant because it serves Okonomiyaki. What the hell, why not, we were hungry by that stage.

7.20pm. We’re in a pancake restaurant in town. Aunty is running the show with her two sons, both pretty cute by the way. One is helping her cook, the other is waiting and appears to be just learning.

Two guys are sitting at the bar. A Japanese girl is also sitting up at the bar, she is chatting to Aunty.

The Bee Gees are playing.

We sit down and order ours. We order large okonomiyaki.

Five French ladies come in after us. Aunty looks pleased with all the customers. She has pancakes cooking for everyone in no time at all. They order smaller okonomiyaki and beers all around.

Our last night in Kyoto. Good food and a cute guy to look at who is serving us.


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