Our first stop in
Japan
was Kyoto, a very charming mid-sized city that served as the capital of Japan
for over 1,000 years, taking over from
Nara
in 794 and ceding to Tokyo
in 1868.
Like most Japanese cities, Kyoto’s religious and government establishments were housed in beautiful
but simple wooden structures surrounded by traditional gardens.
Also like most ancient wooden structures, most of them either
partially or completely burned down several times over the
centuries…but were rebuilt more or less to their original specs.
The city was navigable mostly on
foot, and was far friendlier and more manageable than Tokyo. We ate one of the weirdest
meals of our lives here…a traditional 9 course Kaiseki dinner with
lots of indistinguishable, weird, raw, borderline inedible items.
But we also had the single best meal of our lives here as well,
in a French Kaiseki-style restaurant that’s almost worth a trip to Kyoto
just to eat at.