Day 8: Our Last Day in Japan

This was our last full day in Kyoto, and we made the most of it. Today's main objective: wander the Philosopher's path, a short paved lane running along a canal in the north east corner of the city.

A short subway ride and walk later and we were strolling north on the famous walkway. The Philosopher's Path is a very peaceful paved pedestrian route winding alongside a babbling canal It actually reminded me strongly of the Burke-Gilman trail in Seattle. The day was warm and humid as we wandered past several small shrines. We didn't stop to check them out, however--we saved ourselves for the Temple of the Silver Pavilion, Ginkaku-ji.

That is some truly righteous raking.

Again, I'll leave the history of this amazing place to the guidebooks. I will say, however, that if you have no interest in religious art and only have time to see just one shrine while in Kyoto, this should be it. Just look at the pictures--the gardens are absolutely fantastic, and include quite a bit of sand and gravel art. I can't imagine how much work it has to take to maintain these after, say, a storm.

After a short break for some green tea and mochi, we hit the path again back to urban Kyoto. Our next objective: a very special lunch in (early) honor of Laura's birthday. Yeah it's not till mid-June, but I'm a firm believer in preemptive strikes.

Chocolate. Oh god yes.

And boy did Kyoto deliver: the Kyoto Nama Chocolat Organic Tea House served us up some of the best grub we'd had in Japan. Comfortably situated in a small old house in east Kyoto, the Kyoto Nama is run by a wonderful woman from Vancouver and her Japanese husband. Our hostess, Sherry Nakanishi, was warm, welcoming, and very hungry for news from North America given the recent economic events. We did our best to satisfy her curiosity as much as her husband's cooking satisfied our hunger, but really it was not even close. See the my review entry for the scoop on the food we tried here. Highly recommended.

Full from a huge lunch, our next stop was the nearby Fureaikan, or Kyoto Crafts Museum. The museum itself is a huge structure covering lots of topics. The bottom floor, however, contains a long gallery describing many of Kyoto's traditional craft specialties. The English here is thorough and flawless, there are hands-on exhibits (I'd never tried to weave a rope before--not a career I think I'd enjoy), and there are several video screens showing various craftsmen in action. Expect to spend a couple hours to take it all in, but highly recommended for those who enjoy crafts.

And with that, we decoded that we had pretty much completely covered Eastern Kyoto. Heading back west, we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the arcades and Nishiki-koji street market.

Dinner, if you could call it that, was at a touristy and overpriced restaurant on the Pontocho riverside path named Yamatomi. I'm not going to bother doing a write-up of the food we ate--despite being nearly empty, the staff was crabby and the cover charge just for sitting by the river ridiculous (500 yen per person). I can't recommend this restaurant to anyone going to Kyoto.

However, we more than made up for Yamatomi with our final stop of the evening: the Inoda coffee house. Here, we ate cake. Lots and lots of cake--some sort of green tea tiramisu cake, a fruit tart, and something chocolate. A delicious way to end the day.

Afterwards it was back to pack--Saturday would be spent traveling back up to Narita, and then back to the US. Overall, Kyoto was a wonderful city to visit. It's a lot slower and smaller than Tokyo, but its charms are many and well concentrated. It manages to feel homey and walkable while retaining all of the navigational bear traps that make wandering the streets of Japan so much fun. I would return here.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to drop me a comment!