The first thing we decided on in Japan was visiting Kyoto as it is famous for the Sakura blossoms. So is a lot of Japan, but Kyoto was first on the list of must do’s when googling blossoms. We were getting pretty savvy with the trains by this time and found our way out of the enormous station and walked the short distance to our hotel before it got dark. Once in our hotel we ditched everything and went looking for dinner. A modest little Itzakaya (traditional Japanese Pub or restaurant) nearby had a great selection of foods ordered through a QR code that guided us to the restaurant menu, translated and showed pictures of the dish, then miraculously saw that the food was delivered without a glitch! 

In the morning after breakfast, we chose “The Philosophers Path” to find the blossoms. This route along an old rail track and aqueduct, was filled with people taking “the shot” of the flowers, promenading with loved ones, or posing with a wedding dress under the Sakura trees. 

Two kilometers and hundreds of Sakura and photos later, we found ourselves at the Honen-In temple and chose to pay a visit. This temple prides itself on its art works, moss garden and the use of plants and trees to emphasize the fall colours. Being spring it was all green on green and not a blossom garden so it was quiet, adding to the attraction. 

Kyoto is very walkable and our total that day alone came to an impressive 20 Km. We continued after the Philosophers Path along the river and eventually to the enormous Kyoto Imperial Palace. 

The next day was devoted to finding the Nishiki Market. Walking along the wide Shijo-Dori street with Louis Vuitton, Rolex and Apple stores we wondered if we were with our people. Google took us up a block and we were in the hub of a long canopy covered street full of tiny shops selling food, luggage, knives and animé everything. This was the Nishiki Market! Also known as Kyoto’s Kitchen, it has been around for at least 1200 years and is now a 400m, cobblestone paved, tourist attraction that is bustling with food-centric tourists and locals. Once we got over our crowd aversion, we browsed. We also grazed. This Takoyaki vendor also fed us an ice cold beer. 

Dinner that night was another Itzakaya but with no computer help. We sat at the open kitchen bar and pointed. Cabbage warmed and tossed in sesame oil and nori, noodles with shivering bonito flakes, skewers of chicken, scallops,  and bacon wrapped asparagus were perfectly cooked and burst with flavours and textures, foreign but comfortable. 

On April 5, Albert became a bonafide Canadian senior citizen. We celebrated this by visiting the Fushimi Inari Shrine. Equally old, like Albert, this shrine predated Kyoto. This Shinto shrine is dedicated to Inari, the Kami (or deity) of rice, agriculture, prosperity or fertility. The attraction is the 10,000 vermillion coloured torii gates which symbolize the transition from the human world to the world of the Kami (spirits or gods). This spiritual path ascends up the mountain and through the forest. Thousands of people visit each day and fortunately as we ascended there were less people. 

Albert had a hankering for some conveyor belt sushi. The Kyoto train station had just the spot. In the center of the restaurant the sushi chefs make and replenish a conveyor that surrounds them. Each dish is colour coded according to price. When we were done amassing lots of plates, I stacked them all according to colour to ease the waitstaff with tallying the bill. This was an unnecessary sort as the dishes were tallied with a scanner that read the computer-chips embedded in the plates in seconds. 

Next day, another visit to the rest of the Nishiki market which lead us over the river to the Gion District. The Gion district dates back to the 15th or 16th century and is built around a notable Shinto shrine known as Yasaka Shrine. Also in this area is the picturesque Tatsumi Bridge bridge which recently became famous in a scene of the movie “Memoir of a Geisha”.  While we didn’t see any, this area is famous for traditional Geisha, women of art. Female Geisha first appeared around 1751 (before that these entertainers were played by men). With fewer women learning to be Geisha and with the onslaught of enormous amounts of tourism, the Geisha are less visible and stay to other area that are less tourist oriented. 

There are many beautiful and significant temples dotted throughout Kyoto, but we were templed out. The hillsides have many trails and bamboo forests that we just didn’t have or take time to see. Hopefully there will be a “next time”.

We were heading to Tokyo but we decided to take a couple of nights near Mount Fuji in the hopes we would see this iconic mountain. We decided to stay in the town of Shizuoka. Our bullet train from Kyoto dropped us and our cute little hotel, Abant Shizuoka, was very close. We dropped our stuff and strolled the streets. We noticed a waterway and wall that seemed like an old moat and castle wall. The busy streets weave through these features with traffic lights and sidewalks keeping the motion flow in order. As we continued towards an opening in the wall we stopped at a traffic light. A Japanese gentleman quietly asked where we were from. He asked where we were going. We said to see the castle gate. He suggested we go into one of the high-rises near the gate as it was the prefecture municipal building and it had an observatory on the 21^stfloor. Free. We did. Views of the ocean, the city, train ways and surrounding mountains shrouded in cloud identified our seaside location and the proximity to Mount Fuji. But no mountain today. 

We were quite hungry after seeing the local attractions of the city of Shizoka so we splurged a bit on a dinner and a show. The dinner was found at a highly rated restaurant at the train station. Many of our great food experiences were at restaurants located where we had arrived to towns and cities in Japan. The show was conveniently provided by the cooks who were skilled at cooking Bonito Tuna over a straw fire *right in front of you*. Fantastic! We pulled up a chair and enjoyed being fed and entertained.

In the morning we boarded a train for Fujinomiya and the Mount Fuji World Heritage Center. This center is a museum of all things Mount Fuji. It also locates mini Fujis around Japan. We had seen one of them on Shikoku. The museum is designed as an upside-down mountain that is ascended via a corkscrew path inside as if to climb the mountain. In the dark of the hall projections of other hikers ascend with your shadow as deer and rabbits cross the path. At the top is an open rooftop viewing platform.  We were so lucky to have no clouds! And there is was! Spectacular!!

All that mountain climbing made us very hungry and we were beside the famous B-1 Grand Prix (cheap regional food contest) winner Fujinomiya Yakisoba Gakkai. 

Back to Shizuoka to sleep and we were off to Tokyo the next day.