Upon arrival in Kyoto, we walked to the Nishiki Market. I'm glad we did because it ended up being the only time we were in the market during our stay.
It reminded me a little of Chelsea Market in New York - except instead of restaurants, it had little food shops.
This is what we ate for lunch. It was a potato and onion filled pastry.
I also tried this - a quail egg within an octopus - Nick was too scared. It wasn't my favorite, but I'm glad I tried it.
After the market, we started walking through the town. I didn't do my research & was expecting a quaint town. But, Kyoto is huge - several million residents.
There are still parts that have an old time feel.
We discovered that Nick's GPS on his phone wasn't working and was taking us in all sorts of wrong directions. But, we finally stumbled on a shrine and we were able to get our bearings.
The Yasaka Shrine is large but I didn't really connect with this shrine.
For some reason, I don't think this was how the Shrine grounds originally looked.
There are thousands of shrines and temples in Kyoto. The town was not impacted by the big earthquake that affected Tokyo.
We had a little time before our tea ceremony so we tried, without luck, to find a place to get a drink.
I was surprised to learn that traditional tea ceremonies are not practiced widely in Japan.
Our lovely hostess walked us through the ceremony and then helped us do it as well. The hardest part was sitting our legs. We walked A LOT & those dogs were tired! I'm looking forward to some matcha tea as the days start getting colder.
We walked home with the Gion area of town and stopped at a restaurant near Nishiki Market called Gyogo.
We had the most amazing burnt ramen miso. We are still trying to find a recipe so we can try to duplicate it at home. It was a great first day!
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