Ryokan

While in Kyoto, we stayed at a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. This is a picture of the room. After dinner the staff pushes back the low table and sets up the futons for sleeping. The ryokan also has its own onsen, or public baths (like a spa). I'm not into the onsen, but Gen is a big fan.

This is our dinner on Friday night. Dinner is brought to the room in multiple courses. This was the first course.

In the upper left corner there was really fresh sashimi. In the lower left corner was a salad of fresh bamboo shoots. Next was a little plate of simmered goodies like baby octopus tentacles and tofu. Then there is chirashi sushi. This is sushi rice topped with slivered egg and seafood. I'm not sure what the correct term is for the beef- it's either shabu-shabu or sukiyaki. Anyway, it's raw beef, mushrooms, and greens, and there was a dish of simmering broth for cooking at the table. It was really good.

Here was the second course. The dish in front is a clear soup with broccoli rabe, mochi (pounded rice balls) and herbs. The upper left corner is baby squid in a miso sauce. I did not like this one. The squid kind of gush when you bite into them. I'm a big texture person and that was too much for me, but the sauce was tasty. The upper right corner has a piece of grilled fish with a topping of vinegared daikon (radish). Then they brought out miso soup and rice, and followed with a fruit dessert. Breakfast was included, as well. It was a traditional Japanese breakfast, meaning totally foreign to me. There was tofu, miso soup, rice, and about 6 different toppings for the rice. It was all really good and the staff was really nice.

OK, this has absolutely nothing to do with Kyoto, but I just has to share while it's fresh. There are some really stange fashion trends here. First is the old ladies (and sometimes men) who dye their hair bizarre colors. Not like in the US where they have slightly blue or pink hair due to an incompetent dye job- I'm talking Crayola purple, blue, green...I even saw one woman who had patches in different colors. And the other really weird trend is grown women who dress like toddlers. Generally I think women dress younger here than in the US. And of course, Hello Kitty and other assorted cartoon characters are big. Women are expected to be cute and young-looking. But seriously, I saw a women on the train today who just took this to a ridiculous extreme. Let me paint this picture from the shoes up: black Mary Janes, pink knee socks covered with hearts and trimmed in lace and pink ribbons, a pink circle skirt covered in strawberries and flowers also trimmed with lace, and the ultimate topper- a white fleece cape trimmed with (you guessed it) lace and pink ribbon, and a hood with BUNNY EARS. I am not joking. And this woman was 35 if she was a day. Why would a (presumably) sane adult dress like this? It is a mystery wrapped in an enigma.