I have been looking forward to trying lots of interesting food on this trip. In general, Japanese food in Japan is about what we know of Japanese food in the U.S. However, I have been able to find some rather unique items.

The first was a mini octopus on a stick, with a quail egg stuffed head, in the Nishiki market. It tasted a whole lot more normal than it looked, but still makes for a good picture.

Next was a delicious sushi dinner at the sushi train restaurant, Mushashi, across from our hotel in Kyoto. In general, the sushi was typical; fatty salmon, scallops, and the salmon rolls got good reviews from our group. Unfortunately, we did not get a picture of the ‘horse and mane’ sushi I tried. It came with two pieces, a red piece that looked like beef, and a yellow piece almost the color of tamago. The red piece was tender, tasted like a very mild beef. The yellow piece was hard and tough, almost like grizzly steak, and tasted very gamey. It would be very interesting to know what exactly that sushi was.

For dinner one night, Ryan enjoyed delicious ramen at an always packed hole-in-the-wall looking place right near our hotel. In keeping with our notion of Japanese food, he said it was relatively similar to the ramen at Tatsuya, marinated egg, pork, and all.

Ice cream, more specifically green tea ice cream, is all over the place here. Every other store has soft serve, and the 7-Elevens and mini-marts all have green tea ice cream in their freezers. I could definitely get used to this. And green tea is good for me, right?

Our exploration of Kyoto started with a trip to the post office for an international ATM, much to Ryan’s relief. It turns out that while MasterCards are generally accepted credit cards in Japan, they are NOT generally excepted in most international ATMs, only a select few. Ryan and I were both happy to be able to stop relying on Kelly and Jason for all our ‘cash only’ expenditures.

We then perused and ate our way through Nishiki market, sampling lots of pickled vegetables, dried fruit, some wine, and a few other interesting items. The Nishiki market is a fascinating experience that I would highly recommend to anyone visiting Kyoto.
          
    

In the afternoon, we hopped a train to Arashiyama and rented bikes to get around the town. First stop was the Iwatayama Monkey Park, inhabited by over 170 Japanese macaque monkeys. We were very excited to climb up the small mountain to the monkey viewing area, because we have definitely not been getting enough exercise on this trip (please note the sarcasm). We all took turns feeding the monkeys. One thing I don’t understand is why the monkeys stay on the mountain and do not travel down to the town below.
            
     

I took the quick way down part of the mountain.

We crossed back over the Togetsukyo Bridge, Arashiyama’s landmark, and headed into the famous bamboo grove. What a sight!
      

Bamboo groves were followed by a fast walk to where we had parked the bikes and a furious ride to get them back to the rental company by the required return time. All that hard work required a beer for the guys, while Kelly and I wandered around some shops and the grounds of the Tenryuji Temple, a World Heritage site.

Edited version of Kelly’s method:
1) Find a sign or map with both the English and Japanese versions and take a photo of it for future use.
2) Flex your creative brain muscles and equate symbols to familiar pictures.

For example, in the sign below, the first character looks like a P9 and the second character looks like a ladder on the left side. The second to last character looks like Gumby with the letter J, while the last character looks like a house.

So far, we have used the letter J, the letter R, a power line, a person, a house, two flags surrounding a hut, and a disc golf hole, just to name a few.  Some of the simpler Japanese characters also look like Hebrew letters.

Following our Mt. Fuji experience, the comfort and relaxation of the onsen hotel in Hakone was a nice respite. The hot springs helped soothe sore muscles (at least for Kelly and me, Ryan and Jason opted out of the nudity required onsens), and the Japanese style sleeping mats in the hotel were very comfortable. We opted for the breakfast buffet in the hotel Wednesday morning with both Japanese and western style breakfast foods, allowing us to try the unusual items, and then eat eggs, cereal, yogurt, and fruit. Check out our room and Ryan, Kelly, and Jason in the traditional yukata robes.

           

Jason requested flowers for our room at the onsen, the first night of our honeymoon spent in a hotel, but there was a bit of miscommunication. The front desk presented us with the flowers upon check-out, and we couldn’t quite get across the point that they were supposed to be in the room. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts, and they were very nice flowers.

After breakfast began the complex journey to Jogasaki, taking a bus to a train to a train to a train. Kelly had all the directions well detailed, and we surprisingly managed to get on all the correct trains. The trip was definitely worth it! This section along the eastern coast was created by lava from the Omuroyama Volcano over 4000 years ago and has beautiful rocky cliffs with magnificent views of the ocean and the city. We climbed the Kadowaki Cape lighthouse, crossed the suspension bridge at Kadowakizaki point, and went for an easy hike along the coast line . . . because we didn’t get enough hiking on Mt. Fuji and had no sore muscles whatsoever.

The journey then continued with a train to a train to a train (to maybe another train, I lost count), landing us in Kyoto in time for a late dinner.