Kyoto, Saturday, April 6

It hardly seemed possible, but it was colder today than it was yesterday.  Fortunately, there wasn't any rain.   Andrea has had a cold and is definitely not feeling well.  But she has been a trouper about sightseeing and not letting the fact that she feels rotten keep her from staying active.  I'm sure she'll be glad when I am off and she can just sleep until noon and rest up.

We walked today along Tetsugaku-no-michi - Philosopher's Walk - which runs between Nanzenji Temple and Ginkakuji Temple.  The 2 km path is lined with cherry trees, most of which unfortunately have not yet opened up into bloom.  It was really cold, so we caught a bus across town to the Imperial Palace.  This weekend they opened up the palace to all visitors without fee and without reservation (both of which are typically required).  The crowds were pretty huge, but they moved fairly quickly (except, as Andrea found out, for the ladies' room).  The emperor used this palace until about the middle of the 19th century when the emperor moved to Tokyo.  The palace has the simple aesthetic that is so typical of Japanese buildings.  The main residence, for example, was only 15 rooms.  It is quite a contrast to the ornate and decorated palaces of the West.  We enjoyed going through it, but we were outside the entire time and my was it cold.

We had our lunch on the top floor of a department store in downtown Kyoto.  It is fairly common for department stores to sell food in the basement and to have restaurants on the top floors of the building.

Andrea went back to the hotel to rest and I soldiered on in my sightseeing.  Went to a museum of traditional Kyoto crafts and walked around the Heian Shrine area.  Caught a little bit of a little league game (these kids are pretty good) and watched a group getting a tennis lesson that seemed like organized chaos.  

For our last night in Kyoto, we decided to treat ourselves to dinner at an upscale tempura restaurant. As I may have mentioned in the past, it seems to be the case that higher end restaurants specialize in one thing, such as sushi or tofu or tempura.  This restaurant - Yasaka Endo - located in the Gion District specializes in tempura.  We took a picture of each dish (although I missed the sashimi course of bonita and sea bream)  and I thought I'd reproduce them in full below:

Entrance to Yazaka Endo

First course - Tofu Skin

Sake pitcher with ice tube in the middle

Shrimp toast and corn tempura

Uni tempura

Shrimp head and tail tempura

mushroom stuffed with crab and sweet potato tempura

Fish tempura

Vegetable tempura

Fish tempura and vegetable

Salad

Rice with tempura topping, miso soup and the obligatory pickles

Sakura (cherry) ice cream

We finished off the evening with a stroll back through Maruyama Park to see a very old cherry tree lit up at night.