japan chronicles: gone fishin'?
stefan and i spent three nights in kyoto, the venice of japan. i was told (mostly by daisy) that kyoto is magnificent, and is well worth the trip from tokyo. after a three or so hour train ride (which was half the point!), we arrived in what seemed like a quaint countryside town. of course, there are a few million people in this "quaint" town, but it still felt small town to me.
i think, looking back, that we were lucky about our placement. stefan picked the ryokan we stayed in, a quasi-traditional japanese hotel (quasi meaning it was seven floors, had a nice fancy lobby, but once we got in the room, we saw nothing but bamboo mats and beautiful paper window shades, etc).
we immediately left to wander our part of the town, on east mountain. the sun was setting, but that just made us want to come back the next day when the daylight was on our side. the streets felt so peaceful. you could count the number of cars on one hand. my paradise.
the next day, sure enough, we went back. that's when i took this picture. it was just a small shop. not sure why this one appealed to me. i liked the way the street was slanted against the horizontal lines on the door. looking at the photo now, though, i think my favorite part is that small detail in the window -- i wonder what it says, and why it's there.
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the one problem we seemed to run into in kyoto, the point of this post, is that our schedule seemed off. i heard somewhere that there was some japanese festival. it was during chinese spring festival (the lunar new year), but i'm not sure that was it. but somehow, it seemed like everywhere was closed.
as we did almost every day of the trip, we started wandering well before we got hungry (we both tend to get pretty grumpy when our bellies need food), and then when we came upon a place, hungry or not, we'd stop by. then, looking at the menu (japanese food is everywhere!), we got hungry fast. but somehow, our lunch was always an hour before everywhere opened for lunch. or maybe it was too late, and we were stuck wandering longer. or maybe we found the perfect place, but it closed ten minutes ago.
or, like so many shops were, they just had closed doors. it didn't hinder our trip at all, it was just somewhat strange.
so that's what this picture means to me now. a beautiful city, shops closed, but still not unwelcoming.
[note: the characters on the door are a bunch of numbers and bean. not sure what it means. daisy thinks it may be some kind of food. either way, i wanted to go inside and find out!]
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