(Philosophical )Thought for the day.

I assume that the Japanese, like most civilisations, at some point independently came up with the idea of tables, chairs and beds, due to a basic need to eat, sleep and rest. How can it be then, that such a clever race completely overlooked inventing the leg. It seems to me an obvious requirement as we both have really sore knees after just two days of crawling around on the floor. You’d have thought they’d have figured it out by now. Which brings me to my philisophical question:

Do you think that they have always been more supple than westerners and so inventing the leg was never necessary, or is it the fact that they never invented the leg that has made them evolve with more suppleness?

Breakfast arrived – fish free – yey!

The fruit was artistically arranged with three anti-gravity grapes standing on end…so clever.

Upon investigation they just cut the bottoms off to make them stand up – cheats!

There was also some strange looking ham and runny scrambled eggs so we ended up just eating fruit and toast, which was actually a welcome and delicious breakfast.

Our car arrived at 9.00 to take us to the station and as we left our room Dave and her helper suddenly popped out of nowhere to frantically kneel and bow to us and wish us farewell, It was so nice and respectful. I’ve never experienced that at a Travelodge.

Soon we were bullet-training to Kyoto.

With our coffee on the train we were presented with this to stir our coffee. It’s s lovely translation of ‘stirrer’.

The journey was uneventful for once, the subway negotiated with ease (much less complex than Tokyo) and we arrived at our hotel to find our suitcases in our room.

Tradition now dictates that we rush back out quickly, totally unprepared, and go get lost. So that’s exactly what we did.

In Tokyo, Hakone and now here, we keep seeing shops and restaurants with curtains draped halfway down so you can’t see in. We presumed it meant they were closed….

It turns out that it’s actually a sign they are open! – So many missed opportunities to shop!

Although we found Tokyo an experience and great to see, I don’t think we’d ever want to return. It’s just a huge bustling, fast paced, crowded city.

However, as soon as we arrived in Kyoto the difference was obvious. It has such a great vibe. It seems trendy and relaxed. Although it’s not a small city it has a small town feel so first impressions are good and a long walk confirmed this. We have a full day tour tomorrow so we will report more on Kyoto itself. Also, it was 24 degrees so really pleasant to walk.

Our excellent tour operator had provided tickets to the Kamogowa Odori Geisha dance.

I said to Brigitte on the way in not to get too comfy as we’ll probably want to leave at the first break – it’s just Geisha’s dancing to traditional Japanese music with fans, as you can see from the poster 😩

I couldn’t have been more wrong, it was captivating and charming and although I thought it would not be my sort of thing at all, we both loved it. Unfortunately, Netflix has given us unrealistic expectations and so there were no subtitles. Luckily I had bought an ‘English’ programme and although only three of its 50 pages were actually in English it narrated the story so we could follow what was going on. Same process as going to an Italian Opera really. It was a wonderful experience. No photos were allowed, sorry. Look it up on Youtube if you’re interested.

Kyoto is only an hour away from Kobe, which is famous for having the best beef in the world. Apparently they massage the cows to keep them happy. The fame is well deserved. The meat is very rich and fatty with so much marbling it’s probably more fat than meat but it’s absolutely delicious. You often hear people say that ‘the meat just melted in their mouth’ – well this really, really does! Whatever they do to their cows we should do to ours.

There’s many ways of preparing it and the restaurant we went to was a Yakiniku where you grill the meat yourself at the table.

As the American’s at the next table said – “It’s Awesome!”

Then it was back to the hotel and so to bed to rest for tomorrow’s tour.

Important to remembers # 1. – When tying your kimono, make sure that you pull the left side over the right. The only time right is pulled over the left is when dressing a corpse and should never be done when you are still alive.

Strange things seen in Kyoto…..

OMG – I just got a message from the blog stat counter-

So many people with so little to do! 😂 – Thank you for reading.

21:03 – 11th May – Kyoto