Kyoto

I was able to go to Kyoto for 4 days using my JR rail pass. Our official reason for going was to visit Prof. Iai of the University of Kyoto. The trip was very long and so much happened that I put off posting about it. Now that I'm trying to post about it I'm feeling overwhelmed with the magnitude of the task. I think I'll try to write up an outline to whet your appetite. (I'd like to add that I just found out where "wet your whistle" came from. In Olde England, you used to call to waiters with a whistle. When you wanted more drink, you would "wet your whistle" and blow on it to call them.)

I stayed in a Japanese style hotel room the first two nights. Tatami mats and futons. I have photos on my Picasa account. You can see what I mean by Tatami mats and futons. That hotel was near the Heian shrine and the Budokan (The oldest standing martial arts training building in Japan. Don't be too impressed, it's only a little over 100 years old. Most building here burn down or fall down in earthquakes). At the Budo Center, I watched guys practice with their samurai swords. My friend Matt told me that it can actually be faster to attack by drawing your sword for each strike.

I went to a ridiculously nice tempura restaurant with Laura for lunch. We spent $50 each, but ended up with a 7 course tempura meal in our own private room to eat in. We also had basically our own waitress. It was sweet and I'll post pictures of it as soon as I can.

We found a restaurant run by an American ex pat with his wife and son that served the "best meatball sandwich in Japan," or at least that's what Wikitravel told us. It's a distinction isn't that hard to earn, but they definitely earned it. It was really good.

Our second hotel in Kyoto, which was paid for by our travel grant, was right next to Kyoto tower. We were also right across from the Kyoto train station, which was awesome and had 2 underground malls connected to it.