Yesterday we came full circle, but today was more like an end. It was a completely free day, which I’m very thankful for. My host family booked Shinkansen tickets back at 3:00PM, so I went to their hotel, Hotel Monterey, at around 9:30AM. They wanted to go to Kiyomizudera, and so I went with them! I’ve been there before, but it’s also a very large place with many things to explore and a great view.
Unfortunately, my host dad had a company golf trip and couldn’t make it to Kyoto, but I bought some sake for them to take back yesterday, as well as some Pom Pom Purin merchandise for Koto, my host little sister. But the three of us enjoyed the view from Kiyomizudera. We also rang the bell, threw in 5-yen coins and prayed in the temple. Kiyomizudera is also rightly named because they have a fountain connected to the mountain where you can drink water. Since it isn’t peak tourist season, the line was super short, and we were able to quickly get up the stairs and drink the mountain water. It was very refreshing! I’m still not sure much about the information about this water: does it REALLY come from the mountain? Is it actually safe to drink? Regardless, neither of these thoughts stopped me from taking a good mouthful somehow.
We stopped along the temple at a small udon and soba shop, where I ordered tsukimi soba, which is soba in soup (the dashi was great, by the way) with a raw egg cracked on top. When you let it sit for a while after putting it under the noodles, the egg white will get a bit cloudy, which is my favorite time to slurp it up. As for the egg yolk, you usually break it and mix it into the noodles and soup. It really adds more thickness and body! Japanese eggs are treated differently (more humanely, if you will) and thus they also don’t have salmonella risks, as chickens don’t essentially lay eggs in their own poop. Probably not a good transition, but here’s a nice picture!
We bought a lot of omiyage as well–I bought another Pom Pom Purin keychain for Koto, and Mama-san bought me some fancy matcha, which was on the expensive side, which I’m very thankful for. I can’t wait to make matcha back home! I also purchased some green tea yatsuhashi. Typically, yatsuhashi uses cinnamon (nikki) in their skins, but after eating those, I realized I don’t really like them, but I think green tea yatsuhashi (which doesn’t use cinnamon) is a good mix of Kyoto being famous for matcha and then for yatsuhashi, don’t you think?
I went back with my host family to the JR Kyoto station, where Koto insisted on eating zenzai for dessert. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any places at the station serving it, but we did settle for red bean soup with shirotama on a skewer inside of it, which very similar. I think I also had shirokonbu (I might be unsure of that name) which is salted, dried, tiny pieces of seaweed, which makes the dessert sweeter. Usually, you can also put it in onigiri or just eat it with rice. I parted sadly with Koto and Mama-san, but I hope to see them sometime in the summer!
Afterwards, I shopped around, yet again, as I needed to buy more souvenirs for friends (or… myself). It was really just Daiso shopping yet again, with some 300 yen coin shop in between. I went to the Kawaramachi OPA as well, where the 7th floor and basically all the stores I loved when I studied abroad: emsexcite, Retro Girl, Lowry’s Farm (and the Daiso). I bought some clothes… just some. I had a nice talk with an obaa-san who was at the Daiso and trying to decide what she wanted to buy out of these: 3 pairs of the same socks, a coin holder, and a picture frame with a picture of a car. I wonder what she bought in the end…
I also went to the Book-off on the 8th floor and purchased a random light novel that I thought I might be able to read for practice, as well as a Yoshimoto Banana novel, as Leah told me those were pretty good for Japanese learners. We also read some of her work in Nihon Bunka wo Yomu!
I’m back and settling in for dinner with the group. I walked in on CJ fitting 40-something instant ramen into his luggage as well. We have not yet decided what we’re eating, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out. The internet is also being mean, and the photos that I’m trying to upload are not uploading, so I’ll have to add them later. Looking forward!
