Kyoto 2: temples & young men...

With hangover in tow, we head off for some temples. Luckily the first one was a gentle stumble from the hotel. But being Kyoto, a lot of temples were a gentle stumble from our hotel. The first one was the Yasaka Shrine - guarded by the fiercest of beasts...






Then a wander through the back streets of Gion...


Geishas in front a vending machine - find me a more accurate image of where Japan is at now


For lunch we trooped back to the station for lunch at a beautiful shojin ryori (vegetarian haute cuisine) - which to our dismay had changed hands. But the Oyako Don wa pretty good anyway...


But it was all made up at dinner. Our original destination wasn't open so we decided to opt for a quick bite.



So it probably doesn't look like the best place in Japan, but looks can be deceiving.




The awesomeness of the logo should've tipped us off to what was to follow.
Take a moment to check the pic below...


..that, my friends, is known as a Young Man's Modanyaki. That's two okonomiyaki sandwiched together, filled with maccaroni cheese and pork, topped with a creamy tangy sauce, corn and seaweed. Japan-style potato salad on the side. Probably the most intense meal of the whole trip.

Kyoto

Kyoto was a town we didn't have too much fun in last year. It's probably the major domestic tourist destination in JPN and we managed to come on a weekend last time. Our arrival this time didn't make us appreciate the city much more – let's just say that I can't see the logic in having the same station names on two different train lines. We went to the wrong one.

The hotel arrival was also a little fraught – twin beds on a smoking floor (not the double on a non-smoking one we booked). We're staying in a very touristy part of town – Gion – but it's very convenient as it's close to a lot of the major sight seeing spots.

After a bit of walking around to orientate ourselves we went for dinner at a tofu restaurant on Pontocho – a cute little alley of restaurants – some very exclusive...

..this one had its quirks - like light up coasters and a Hello Kitty Rubik's cube on the bar.

Afterwards we met up with some friends from Melbourne who were in Kyoto as well.
Rooftop drinking and karaoke = still being drunk at 10am the next morning.

View from the 'bar'. Just a random rooftop that was stumbled upon (BYO $6 vodka).

Melbourne homies.

Down from the rooftop...

..and into the karaoke place where we met these two weird French dudes who were carrying around a fish head. We're not sure why either.

Doooon't stop belieeeeeving...

..hold on to that feeeeeeeeeling.

goodbye tokyo

our last day was fun, shopping mainly. dealing with our hangovers from the eve prior. some fried monjiyaki was odd. later that night we met up with nikki who took us to her favourite store beaver (most awesome) and the best katsu restaurant in all of tokyo. afterwards we went to the "lock out" where we drank eye balls and ate scary fries.

the monyaki didn't end up looking much different to this?

grinding seseme seeds to make katsu sauce. eating out in japan is pretty interactive.

tokyo's best katsu. and all you can eat cabbage and pickles, if you want

At the lockout

Boozy, yet sweet, eye ballz

Tokyo: Akihabara, Nakano, Shimo Kitazawa

Sunday we decided to hit Akihabara. The new Nintendo DS had just dropped and where else to get one but the center of the video gaming planet? I didn't end up getting one (maybe soon though) but we did manage to hit a few capsule vending machines.

Line for the DS (I think).

This crazy van in Akiba done up front to back in Neon Genesis Evangelion stuff...

..inside of whcih was this creepy life size version of one of the main characters.

After Akiba, it was off to Nakano for some chewap food, shopping and more capsule machines..

That night we hit Shimo Kitazawa – the boho area of Tokyo. It's packed with vintage clothing stores and more left-field stuff. Our target was an izakaya in the back streets – Shibure. After a bit of a wait to get in, we were treated to one of the best meals we've had this trip in one of the coolest places. It's everything you want in an izakaya – good booze, good food and a rowdy vibe.

This is Y450 'Mystery sake' which the fill to overflowing so it goes in the wooden box as well.

Awesome salad.

This tofu cheese thing.

life changing pork belly.

The best fries we've ever had. Like ever.

After 2 mystery sakes and 2 Shitamachi highballs.

Yokohama

Weekends in Tokyo can be a bit intense so on Saturday we headed off to Yokohama. From Ebisu, the station across from our hotel, it took only 21 minutes to reach Japan's second largest city.



While it seems there's lots to do in Yokes normally anyway, we'd headed down for the Yokohama Triennale 2008. Last year we got to go to the Kobe Biennale, an excellent contemporary japanese art exhibition within hundreds of shipping containers. I thought the biennale would be similar but instead the contemporary artists were from everywhere and of varying quality.

Will in front of an instillation that reminded me of wet plaster string over a balloon but bigger

Oh, we had a break for "threesies" - our new favourite meal

These lights made noise

Japanese artist painting t-shirts

Humming mirrors

Political puppets

Yokohama at night. Actually, this was probably around 5.30pm

Yokohama has a big ex-pat community and a huge Chinatown area, with very grand temples.

We went there for the all-you-can-eat Dim Sum. And we lined up for it too. Out of the 30 dishes on offer not one was vegetarian. Will ended up eating the 11 dishes we ordered himself. I had some dessert and some crispy noodles with soy sauce. Yum.