our first two stops yesterday were packed with tourists and kids on field trips, but they both still had their moments. Nijo Castle had an impressive interior, with creaking wooden floors, grand tatami rooms, and painted wall panels. we approached Kiyomizudera temple via a winding side path through an enormous cemetery and the temple's setting on the side of a hill was impressive, but it was even busier and the main building was under construction.
(we've been laughing about how our photos are carefully edited & selected to make it look like there's nobody else around in these beautiful, tranquil scenes, so i wanted to pull back the curtain a bit here.)
next we got mochi and a yuba (fried tofu skin) -wrapped rice snack on our way to a small chopstick shop run by Mr Ichihara, whose family has been making chopsticks for hundreds of years and used to supply them to the Imperial family. I got a nice pair of bamboo ones - simple, but long and well-made.
we stopped at a traditional washi (handmade paper) store and ogled the wares, then walked a few blocks through the narrow & crowded Nishiki market, sampling dried baby sardines, pickled radishes, candied peanuts, spicy rice crackers, and who knows what else until sensory overload made us have to escape down a side street.
when we found ourselves at a soba noodle restaurant established around 1700, we had to go in. we shared an order of cold soba with dipping sauce in the little back room with windows overlooking the garden. then we went to an old tea shop and got a package of hojicha tea, which smelled delicious, and visited Nanzenji shrine in the rain. it was pretty, there was an enormous black wooden gate, and we got a bit lost in the woods behind it before we finally made our way home.
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