The Road Less Traveled

In the morning, we had our presentation.  We thought only a few people would show up to a presentation on a Saturday morning, but about 15 people came, including Barbara Seidelhofer, who gave really good suggestions for literature connections.  We checked out of our room and took a cab direct to Gen’s father’s hotel in Kowloon.  His hotel was right across the street from the Peninsula, the most expensive hotel in Hong Kong.  It is also famous for its high tea in the hotel lobby.  The three of us headed over, glad we were still wearing our presentation clothes since the dress code was “smart casual” (business casual).  Unfortunately, tea didn’t start until 2 p.m. and it was only 12:30.  Kathy suggested we go find lunch somewhere. I thought that meant we were planning to skip tea in order to do sightseeing. But after we ordered Japanese food in the basement at Sogo, Kathy said we should get back to the hotel as soon as possible after eating. Thus, we went into the tea with fairly full stomachs. That made it easier on our wallets, as we could order a tea set for one plus three pots of tea (Sophie met us at the hotel), and share the three-tiered tray of pastries, sandwiches, and scones.  Some dishes like the scones were easier to divide among four people than others, but in the end it didn’t matter as I was the only one who had room for a large portion of the set. We sat and drank and chatted while a classical quartet played a wide variety of music.  It was a lovely setting; the only thing that detracted from the ambience was the line of people we could see waiting for people like us to finish our tea so they could have their turn.

After lunch, we headed back across the bay on the subway to catch the famed tram to the Peak, a scenic overlook with shops. Unfortunately, the weather was not very cooperative.  While standing in line to get tickets to the peak, it started raining pretty hard. Going up the in the tram we had to hurry to close the big windows to keep the rain from pelting in.  O  either side of us we saw only trees and slanted buildings and mist. It was like traveling in a rain forest.

We got off the tram and emerged into Tourist Central:  traditional souvenirs, American restaurants, and shops on several floors. We took the escalator up to the “overlook”, and saw only tree-covered hills, mist, and a quarter of the buildings.  I have to say that misty overlook had a beauty of its own to it, especially when the mist started moving rapidly across the hillside.  We came back to the overlook after seeing some shops and found the mist had started clearing in the city below, so that we could make out more of the harbor and the ships moving along in it.

We walked around the Galleria, another mall at the Peak, then took the tram back down the hill.  We took the subway back  to T.S.T.   I ventured out on my own with guidance from Gen and a map near the subway station to buy a souvenir at the Hard Rock Café, and then met Gen and Kathy back at the hotel. We went out for dinner one last time.  Gen asked at the hotel and found another fast food restaurant, Fairwood. Kathy wasn’t hungry; she had soup. I had the “five treasures” meal: chicken, sausage, pork, a duck’s egg, and rice in a bowl. Gen said this is what real Hong Kong people eat, not dim sum. So that made it special.

We went back to the hotel, got our luggage, and Gen helped us find the shuttle from the hotel to the Kowloon Airport Express train shuttle stop.  When it finally came we got on, and got a few more minutes to see bustling streets, neon signs, street food, and meat hanging in the windows before getting on the train and starting the long journey home.

Epilogue

The frequent-flier miles ticket I had booked from Philly to Seoul with a planned stopover in Japan came naturally with a 7-hour layover in Los Angeles. Normally it would have been horrible to be stuck waiting several hours in an airport for a red-eye flight after coming off essentially another overnight flight.     But my hometown is Los Angeles, which means it was just enough time for my family (mom, aunt, uncle) to drive down, pick me up, and go out of the airport into sunny (albeit slightly cool) Westchester for dinner and after-dinner Starbucks with me.  Since my good friend Nick lives near L.A.X., I knew the restaurant options well. And since L.A. is a Mexican food mecca, I chose a nice sit-down Mexican restaurant where you can watch them cooking up the tortillas by hand.  It was the perfect end to my vacation.

Today was a rather quiet day in terms of sightseeing.  Gen had her presentation with her former UC Davis advisor in the morning. Kathy and I went to that as well as a presentation by a Penn alum who lives in Singapore now.  After Gen’s presentation, Kathy, Gen, and a friend of Gen’s from Taiwan/UC Davis, Sophie, went to Harbor City again.  We decided to eat at Rice Paper, a nouvelle Vietnamese restaurant in the mall. They had a special lunch menu for four people that cost 500 HK Dollars (about 18 dollars each).  There must have been 7-8 dishes on the menu, and nearly all of them were some kind of meat. There was so much food, when they brought us another round of food we thought they had made a mistake.  There was cabbage, fried rice, four kinds of meat (including buttery chicken wings that were so good I didn’t miss the hot sauce), lamb skewers, and a free lemon drink.  By the end of the meal, we were stuffed.

We left Sophie to shop and headed back to Causeway Bay to do some more shopping. Kathy got an old belt fixed and bought a tropical fruit called mangostine.  We also stopped at a fruit place to get mango drinks with chunks of real mango in them. Yum!  Around 4, we decided we should get back to the university for a presentation about Hong Kong and Singapore.  We took the train to Central, but then had a hard time finding a cab. Many of them were full, or wouldn’t stop where we were trying to flag them down. Gen said it was the financial district and it was late in the day, so many people were trying to get cabs.

We finally got one and made it back to the university about 10 minutes into the presentation.  We ended up going back to the room and just hanging out; Gen and Kathy had arrived only a few days ago, and hadn’t really had time to rest and recover from jet lag. And I think the experience of running back and forth had its toll.  Around 9, Kathy opened the bloody-looking mangostine like a surgeon and Gen broke out a bag of Trader Joe’s pistachios.  Not really in the mood to go out, I suggested we order pizza. Gen had never ordered Pizza Hut pizza in Hong Kong before, but she managed to find the details online (SHE managed to get someone to make the internet connection work for her computer—the power of knowing the local language!).  The pizza was a bit small considering the price, but that and our “side dishes” did the job. More importantly, it all gave us fuel and time to do a dry run of our presentation, something we hadn’t had a chance to do yet.

We woke up to the sound of pouring rain. The balcony had a layer of water on it maybe two inches thick. The weather report on TV said Hong Kong was at “amber alert”. We wondered whether the conference would be delayed; classes had been cancelled the day before because of strong winds from the typhoon. Gen called her uncle to ask but he didn’t answer his phone. In the meantime, we got ready and went to our free breakfast. We had a choice of 4 menu items. Gen had the rice porridge. Kathy and I had the egg and fruit plate. The egg turned out to be hardboiled, and the assorted fruit were watermelon and a banana. Anyway, it was free and good and there was coffee.

We walked down the hill to hear the plenary session (main talk) by Barbara Seidelhofer from the University of Vienna; she does a lot of work on English as a Lingua Franca so it was important to hear her work. Afterwards, we walked to the Bonham gate to catch a cab down the hill. Our plan was to take the MTR (subway) to Kowloon to do some shopping at the “Ladies’ Market” (an open-air market of clothes). Gen chatted with the cab driver in Cantonese, and he told her that it would be cheaper and more interesting to take the ferry across. He was right—it was a mere 1.70 HKD to take the ferry one way, compared to 5-10.50 for the MTR. We also had a great view of the Hong Kong downtown and Kowloon skylines with its extremely modern buildings.

When we got off in Kowloon, it was still raining lightly. So instead of the Ladies Market we walked around the Harbour City mall, a high end indoor shopping center. We walked through the nearby and slightly less expensive Citysuper. We headed to the MTR and took it to Causeway Bay for more indoor shopping. We walked through Sogo, a Japanese department store/supermarket, and the shops at Island Beverley. Unfortunately, most of the stores weren’t open yet even though it was nearly 1:00. We walked around one more shopping center, but again most of the stores weren’t open. Gen said it’s because they stay open later in the evening. We saw one store that had some cute shirts and dresses, but the owner said she couldn’t let me try them on because they stretch easily. I felt I couldn’t take a risk buying something that wouldn’t fit or look right, so we walked away.

We started getting hungry, and popped into a restaurant for their lunch special. For 36 HKD ($5) we got a pot of noodles with mushrooms and cabbage, and a milk tea (boba). We walked through an open-air market that had enough awning to keep us dry. A woman was selling shirts for a mere 79 HKD. As I stood pondering whether to buy it, she started ranting to Gen in Cantonese about what a good price it was, and there was no reason to hesitate at such a good price. She also made hand motions over my upper body indicating how the blouse would be a good fit. She was such a character, I went ahead and bought it even though I couldn’t try it on.

We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping. We went to popular clothing stores Giordano’s, G2000 (where I made some pricey but pleasing summer clothing purchases), Esprit, and the Japanese store Miju–a mixture of clothing, crackers, and Ikea-like housewares. We also walked briefly through Times Square—a shopping mall, not a replica of the New York district. For something resembling Times Square, however, we got on the MTR one more time to the Mong Kok exit, where crowds walk without cars among electronic stores, restaurants, neon signs, and hourly hotels.

Gen led us to her favorite Hong Kong fast food restaurant, Café de Corel, for dinner. You look at the menu options on a board (like the canteen), order, pay, then go to another table with trays where your food is assembled. I got Shanghai ribs with tofu, and lemon tea (very sweet). Gen got chicken and rice. Kathy got ramen soup and a dragonfruit drink, an order which caused some hassle. Apparently each part of the order should have a receipt that you give to someone who puts it on a tray and then takes the receipt off when the food is ready. They never got the receipt for Kathy’s dragonfruit drink because it was handed to her without ever going near the tray. Very weird.

Tired and on sensory overload from the people, lights, activity, and hassle, we ate quickly and took the subway to Central and a cab to our room. We bought some beer from the vending machines downstairs, and spent the evening watching cable TV. We became fixated on the Panda Channel, recorded video of the pandas at Hong Kong’s Ocean Park. They were just too cute.

My first impression of Hong Kong was WET.  As the plane made its descent, I could see the rain streaming down the windows.  The island below was green and misty.  After Kathy and I landed, we went through a long immigration line, got tickets for the airport express train (24 minutes, 180 HK dollars round trip), changed some money, and got on the train. We were shocked to see a poster advertising our conference at the airport! Kathy got a card for 300 HK dollars which gives you a round trip Airport Express ride plus unlimited MTR (subway) rides for 3 days (it’s actually 250 plus a 50 dollar deposit). I wasn’t sure how much we’d use the subway, so I didn’t buy it.

When we got off at Hong Kong station, we decided to take a taxi since it was raining and Gen had warned us the bus stop would be hard to find.  Although Hong Kong’s official language is English, we managed to get a Taxi driver who didn’t speak or read English.  So when Kathy showed him the map of the university and where we wanted to go, he didn’t understand. Fortunately, a worker at the taxi stand could be our ‘cultural broker’ and explain to the taxi driver where we were going. We drove past skyscrapers owned by major Western and Asian corporations (including Bank of America) and then journeyed up a narrow winding road until we arrived at Robert Black College on the Hong Kong University campus. We registered, then sat in the office for about half an hour until our room was ready.  Apparently, there had been a delay getting things ready because of the typhoon earlier in the morning.

We got into our room and tried to use the Internet.  There was a form we had to fill out with the physical address of our computer. The instructions for finding the physical address included using the MS-DOS prompt! It took me a while to even find that on my computer; Kathy’s computer, which runs on Vista, had it but didn’t recognize the command.  We handed in a form for just my computer, and kept trying the various open wireless connections with very limited success. Even the DSL cord didn’t seem to fit or work. I realized how spoiled we had been in Korea.

We wandered around the campus a bit, stopped in the canteen (cafeteria) for a  bun and a drink, registered, and then went to the welcoming cocktail hour at the top of the K.K. Leung building. The restaurant had a lovely view of the Hong Kong Island harbor, but the tables weren’t set up for mingling.  Oh well. We went back to the canteen for a very cheap dinner. I had soyed chicken and rice for 19 HKD (less than $3).  I thought it was okay, but Kathy wasn’t happy with her dinner.  We agreed not to go back there again.

We walked back up the hill to our room, and waited for Gen to arrive. She showed up around 9 p.m. We let her settle in, then she called her uncle (her dad’s friend), who picked us up at the bottom the campus hill and drove us to a Shanghai-style restaurant. We ordered 4-5 kinds of dim-sum like dishes, including a couple of kinds of steamed buns, a fried and puffy scallion pancake, and green beans with pork.  They got a good laugh out of the fact that I mistook the finely minced pork for peanuts; it became a running joke for the rest of the trip.

Kathy arrived around 6 or 7 a.m., unpacked and checked email while I worked on waking up. Around 11:30, we headed out to lunch. Kathy knew a famous restaurant for tofu. We sat on the floor and had side dishes that included fried fish. I could already tell we were in a nicer, more expensive restaurant than I had been in on my own. It was also the first time I’d been in a restaurant with eggs on the table that you could crack and put directly into your food. I guess I was nervous, because when I tried to crack one into my bubbling hot seafood tofu, it slipped and fell into the bowl. Kathy asked if I was trying to make a hard-boiled egg.

After lunch, we walked towards Kathy’s preferred hair salon. The hope was she could get her hair cut and I could get it styled at a low price. But they couldn’t help us for another 20 minutes, and it would have cost too much to get my hair done (or at least, more than it was worth). We decided to grab a coffee at a place that looked a lot like a Pinkberry. Then Kathy went to get her hair cut, and I headed to the Metro to go see Biwon. Kathy told me to meet her at 6:00 p.m. at the Mapo subway stop.

I got on the subway, and changed trains to go towards Biwon. A man asked in English if he could help me. It turned out he wanted to practice his English with me. He was older and at first the whole experience seemed kind of creepy. But something in me felt I should be kind and patient and let him practice his English. Then it occurred to me that he could help me with something, and it would be good practice for him. I asked him to tell me how to get to Mapo from Anguk (my first destination). I’d had a hard time finding it on the subway map, though I’d seen Mapo-Gu Office. He found it, and it was different from Mapo-gu. So once again, someone practicing their English had saved me from directional failure.

I got off at Anguk and started walking towards what I hoped would be Biwon; I hadn’t packed my guidebook because I thought I’d be getting my hair done. I didn’t find that, but I did see signs for the Korean Food Institute! This was not just precious because of my food obsession; my last group of Samsung students had taken me there on our class trip. I have very fond memories of going there and learning to make two kinds of dok (rice cake). I couldn’t take a class again, but I went to the café and had tea and rice cakes. Then I paid 3,000 won and went again to see the museum.

I never did find Biwon after that, but I enjoyed walking around the tree-lined streets nearby. I finally got on the train and headed to Mapo, where I met Kathy. She led me to her favorite pa jung (pancake) restaurant; it’s the thickest Korean pancake I’ve ever had. We also had a spicy noodle salad. Kathy’s mother met us there as well. We had a nice repast.

Kathy’s boss came around 11 to see about moving me to another apartment. But I hadn’t packed yet, so she said she’d come back at 12. She did and took me to the new apartment, around the corner from the current one. She then gave me advice on what to see in the city (e.g. Jogyesa Temple), and called to get information on touring the secret garden (Biwon).
Unfortunately, it is closed on Mondays (as are several sites in the city).

I had lunch at the gimbap place near the apartments, but the tuna gimbap was not as good here as it was in Bundang. And it was more expensive (2500 won). I got on the subway to the Gyeongbokgung stop. It seems I arrived at the palace just in time for the changing of the guard. It was much more elaborate (i.e. more people and with more colorful wardrobe) tha other places I’ve seen. There was also music played that sounded like a cat dying. I walked around the palace grounds, taking in the different royal family buildings (separate buildings for the king, queen, and princes) with the hills in the background and, for one building, a pond in the foreground.

After the palace, I went to the National Folk Museum (free admission), a museum dedicated to telling the history, culture, and customs from birth to death of the Korean people. From there, I walked to and through Insa-dong, a lovely, old neighborhood with narrow streets, tea houses, souvenirs, and traditional food. After much wandering and asking for help at the visitors center, I finally found the Jogyesa temple. It was a lovely temple, and for the first time in my many temple visits I heard a priest banging a drum.

After resting in Insa-dong with a cup of iced coffee I bought outside 7-11, I walked on through Myeong-dong, the hip and bustling neighborhood of high-end shops and restaurants. Myeong-dong was too crowded and hip for me, so I got out and onto the subway home.

I had breakfast—a cup of cold café au lait, pastry, and juice I’d bought at the supermarket. I hung out watching TV until the early afternoon. I felt the same inertia about going out into the city that I felt when I lived in Seoul. I still can’t put my finger on why. I finally overcame that lethargy around 2 p.m., and got on the train at Seollung station for Bundang. It wasn’t until I got on the train that I remembered which stop I had lived at (Imae) and which stop was the one for Samsun Plaza (Seohyeon). I got off the train and was surprised that I didn’t see anything on the map about Samsung Plaza. I guesstimated which exit to take (each subway stop has numerous numbered exits) and when I saw “food plaza” I realized that the subway stop was right under Samsung Plaza. The food section of Samsung Plaza was busier than I remembered, and more expensive than I remembered, too—14 dollars for meat? Forget it!

I walked through the food section and then upstairs and out. I was shocked at the front entrance to see that where I thought HSBC bank had been there was now a huge Krispy Kreme donuts! The bookstore also seemed to have disappeared. The place where I used to go with my Samsung friends for soju cocktails seemed to still be there, but I wasn’t about to go there alone at 3 in the afternoon. My favorite gimbap place didn’t seem to be where it should be (on the corner). I went in a gimbap place in the area, but ordered kimchi with rice instead because I couldn’t remember how to say “tuna gimbap”. It was spicy, but not as good as actual kimchi fried rice would have been.

On the upside, I was able to find my way to Lotte Mart, and buy my favorite galbi (marinated meat) and some side dishes. I walked from Lotte Mart and managed to find my old apartment building, though it looked like it had faded over the years. At least I could stop at my favorite French bakery on the way. I also managed to remember how to find the Imae stop and get back to Kathy’s apartment. When I got home, though, I was so full from the kimchi fried rice that I skipped dinner.

The next morning, I woke up fairly early. I had pastries and café au lait. Then I got on the subway and went to Yonsei University to have lunch with Jay, one of my former TESOL certificate students from Riverside. He presented three options for lunch. One was something I’d had before. One was Outback steakhouse, which I thought was too expensive an too Western. The third option was a namyeon place, the Korean way of saying ramen or noodles. I’d never had namyeon in Korea, so that sounded good to me. It turned out to be a good choice. We walked in and took off our shoes and sat on the floor at the table in traditional Korean style. Jay ordered a cold soba noodle soup with egg and traditional Korean hot sauce. Mmm! Jay paid, and I let him only because I knew it was Korean tradition to have one person pay for a meal. Thinking how I could reciprocate in a respectful fashion, I suggested we have coffee or tea. We went to Starbucks, where even a regular cup of coffee is $3!!!! So I ordered a soy latte for only a dollar more. We sat and chatted, and then it was time to say goodbye.

I got on the subway and went to Samseong, the stop for the COEX mall. It was Sunday and clearly the place to be or be seen. There were lots of American restaurants with outrageous prices. $30 for a pizza combo. $6 for a Burger King burger. Insane! I went to the movie theater, literally called Megabox, and thought about seeing “Sex and the City”. But it appeared from the color coded ticket office screen that the next two shows were sold out. That was okay. Around 5 I was hungry and tired of the madding crowd, so I came back to the apartment to cook the galbi. I put the pan on the stove, poured the galbi into the pan, and turned on burner. No gas came out. I kept trying both of them. Nothing. No phone to call and ask, either. What was I gonna do? Wait, I have a working microwave! Not as attractive as the pan, but it got the job done. Phew! I found out later that I just needed to turn the gas valve and the stove would have
worked. Oh well.

Kazo was kind enough to give me a ride to the subway station. I said goodbye and that I hope I can come back to Kyoto someday. I took the subway to Kyoto Station. I took the Shinkansen to Tokyo, then took the Narita Express train to the airport. When I arrived Friday night, I was surprised we had to take a shuttle train to the main terminal; I hadn’t done that before. I went through immigration and customs as fast as I could, got money from the ATM, and bought a ticket for the City Air Terminal bus just in time to get on board. The ride was smooth until we got close to Seoul, and then there was traffic. Yeah, I was back.

My classmate’s boss was waiting at the City Air Terminal. She got a cab which took us to the place in Gangnam I’d be staying the next few days. It was a lovely one-room apartment with all new furniture, including a flat-screen TV, microwave, washing machine with a dryer function, and a good view of the city. She walked me to the supermarket, then took me to a place around the corner for mandoo (dumplings). She hadn’t had lunch or dinner, so this was an important stop. I couldn’t believe she paid for the cab and for dinner. But since I was the friend of her good employee…

Lunch in the Neighborhood

I woke up to the sound of rain.  That made it easier to stay inside and write postcards.  Around 11:00, I decided it was time to drag myself out of the guesthouse.  Coincidentally, the rain stopped around then.  Kazo gave me directions an udon noodle place nearby that was good and cheap.  He described the different types of udon noodle choices, and when I told him what kind I would want he wrote the name down in English for me. The udon noodle house has no English menus or English-speaking servers, so this was crucial.  I enjoyed the walk through the suburban neighborhood of coffee shops, supermarkets, and clothing stores. The udon house had the ambience of an American diner, and the food was cheap—only 400 yen! I was satisfied.

The Long Walk

I followed Kazo’s directions into the Daitokuji complex, and from there meandered around the temple grounds. The combination of wood and gravel and stone and bamboo and grass was impressive. No one was charging money either.  I found my way back to the main street (Daitokuji-Dori), and started walking towards the Shimogamo Shrine.  Along the way I stopped at Boulangerie L’Etranger, the only French bakery I saw with a counter to sit and have coffee. The pastries were also the most artistic I’d seen so far.  It was expensive (the coffee and Danish cost more than lunch), but the older woman who prepared and served the coffee was so kind and her movements were as slow and deliberate as if she were conducting a tea ceremony.  That plus the view of old world breads made it an aesthetically pleasing place to be.

I finally made it to Shimogamo Shrine.  I was reaching my saturation point with shrines.  The park attached to the shrine, however, was very green and very peaceful, and worth the walk. I continued on from there to the Kyoto Imperial Palace Park.  It had endless low yellow walls with grey awnings lining huge, wide, gravel-stoned avenues.  The stony expanse of it was exhausting for me.   Most of it was closed, too. Only an information center was open.

After walking through the whole park, I started heading back towards Horikawa street to catch the bus home.  I’m not sure which little side street I was on, but I passed a restaurant with some plastic displays of food that looked interesting and that I hadn’t tried before. I went in and discovered that it was a quasi-fast food restaurant.  You go in and choose your dish from a vending machine. You press the button, put in your money (in my case, about 700 yen), and out comes a ticket. You give the ticket to the cook, and she prepares your meal. I had a bowl of rice topped with a fried pork cutlet topped with a cooked egg. It was good, but the unusual vending machine experience really made the meal.

I got up around 8:30, sat down in the common room to breakfast, and chatted with a man from Singapore who was taking his family to Nara. I took the bus directly to Kyoto Station, this time taking a different bus and passing some new temples along the way. I got on the 11:20 train again towards Nara, but this time I would get off halfway at Uji.

I walked through three different cars looking for a completely empty seat, and instead I ran into the couple I’d seen at Higashi Hongan! They recognized me and invited me to sit down with them. It was nice having familiar face to chat with, even if only for 20 minutes. I got off the train and went to the tourist center, where a worker gave me an English-language map and highlighted a recommended walking route and sights for me.

Uji was a breath of fresh air. Pastoral, tranquil, and small, more so than Nara in my opinion. I walked down a narrow passage of shops and restaurants. The food was starting to look good, and it was nearly lunchtime. I ended up in a restaurant where I could see a man making green tea soba noodles by hand. I stared at the pictures on the menu for several minutes before settling on a simple green tea soba plate. The soba was cooked and served on a bamboo mat, similar to the kind used to roll sushi but round (to fit in the bowl) instead of rectangular. On the tray was also a small cup. The lid of the cup held a small egg (quail, perhaps?), green onion, and wasabi. Following the lead of the nearby diners, I lifted the lid, poured everything into the cold liquid below (miso or fish broth, I’m not sure), and mixed it up. I then picked up the noodles with my chopsticks, dipped them in the liquid, and ate. Simple but delicious!!! At the end of the meal, a server poured hot water into the remaining liquid so I could drink it as a soup. All of that cost 800 yen, and it was worth it.

After I lunch, I paid the 600 yen to enter the Byodin Temple. I walked around the grounds and took pictures outside the Phoenix Hall rather than paying the extra 300 yen to enter. My ticket included admission to the Byodin Museum, a glass and stone building that was home to an exhibit on the restoration of Phoenix Hall and a collection of statues depicting “Bodhisattvas on Clouds”.

After the temple, I walked along the Uji River. There were food and tea shops on the trail (if I had realized how special Uji tea was, I would have stopped and tried some), and boats floating by slowly. I walked to the stone pagoda, crossed a bridge, walked up to Eshinn temple and then to Ugami Shrine. My words, however, can’t do justice to the natural beauty and serenity of the surroundings. I thought I’d never want to leave. All good things must end eventually, though. I headed down the hill, across the wooden bridge (which is actually reinforced now with concrete), and back to the JR train station.

Afternoon in Kyoto

I caught a local train to Kyoto instead of an express train. This time, nothing seemed familiar when I got off the train. It took me a while to find my way to the usual train station exit. To build up my energy for the afternoon round of sightseeing, I decided to stop for 4:00 coffee and cake at Café Veloce, a bustling coffee shop next to the central post office. I then went back into the train station and, per the instructions at the tourist center on the second floor, took the elevator inside the adjacent department store to the 9th floor for the tourist center for foreigners. I got directions to Kiyomizudera temple, a building strongly recommended by the man from Singapore and Manami and Koichi because it is set in the hills and has a great view of the city.

I hopped on bus 206 and got off at the Gojozaka bus stop. I walked 1 kilometer up a steep and narrow hill with all the other tourists. I agree the pagoda complex and its hillside view were breathtaking, but I was too cheap to pay the 300 yen entrance fee. I took pictures of what I could outside the entrance and found a quiet place slightly downhill to write my journal.

I walked back downhill past souvenir shops hawking silk, jade, pickles, tea and more. I ended up once again walking through the Gion district, but again I didn’t see any geisha. Oh well. I reached the main shopping area, and decided to go up to the “Bistro” floors of the Hankyu department store because I was trying to conserve cash and was desperate to pay for something with a credit card. A very American approach I know, but I couldn’t help it. There were several restaurant to choose from. I immediately ruled out the Italian food at “Miami Garden” and the dim sum at the Hong Kong restaurant (I’d be eating Hong Kong food soon enough). I settled on a restaurant serving different kinds of omurice (cooked rice with a thin omelette wrapped around it). For about $14 I got a “dream set” (combo): omurice with ketchup, salmon salad, and “ice tea” (tea with ice cream in it). I know it was expensive, but each course was delicious.

I headed to the bus stop to get home. When the bus came though, it was very crowded. I decided to wait for the next one. I walked on towards the next stop, and ended up finding a shopping arcade (covered shopping walkway) I hadn’t seen before. The Shinkyogoku Arcade had several stylish clothing stores, restaurants, a movie theater, a bookstore, and souvenir shops. I was glad I had missed that bus.