Even though it was January 2nd, the ryokan still served us a New Year’s breakfast. On to the photos!
Category: Japan trip 2014-2015
New Year’s Kaiseki
When we stayed at the ryokan in Kyoto on the night of January 1st, we laid out for the full kaiseki dinner experience. A kaiseki dinner is a formal, traditional, multi-course Japanese meal. (That link goes to the Wikipedia entry, in case you want to read more.) On to the food!
Out the bus window
Condensation and motion blur gives this an atmospheric look. This is out the bus window on the way back from our half-day tour of Shirakawa-go.
Tunnel
We’re in the middle of the 3rd longest tunnel in Japan and our phones have full signal. So I made this post. It’s 11 km long, btw. Sent from my TRS-80
Winter wonderland
We took a train from Kyoto to Toyama today, then changed there for a train to Takayama. The reason for this is that we’d heard that the ride from Toyama to Nagoya is one of the most beautiful in Japan, and we,ll be doing a Takayama to Tokyo via Nagoya in a couple of days….
Cooking class
Yes, we get actual certified Kobe beef in this class. Here’s the certificate. 🙂
Game show
I think pretty much everyone reading this knows that Japan is the home of some of the world’s oddest game shows. The odder ones are usually variety shows whose contestants tend to be comedians and other celebrities, advancing their careers via public humiliation. That’s beside the point. What this post is, is asking anyone with…
Bath time
Pigeons bathing in snowmelt running off the roof of the gate to the Toji Shrine.
Pastry: The Unboxening
Japanese department stores usually have 1 or 2 floors on the ground floor or in the basement devoted to selling food. Not restaurants, but pastries, teas, pickled things, etc, pretty much anything you can put into a really fancy package and sell in small amounts. Toby and I wandered around the basement of the JR…
On Hotel Amenities
The U.S. may have some catching up to do with Japan when it comes to hotel amenities. So far we’ve seen: