After a two hour ride on the bullet train to Kyoto, a couple of stops on the local metro, and a twenty minute walk through the most tourist-congested area I have ever been in (about 20% turned up from even the busiest days in Estes Park), we got to a quiet, tiny cul-de-sac and still spent ten minutes looking for our place. Our neighborhood was beautiful, there was a giant river with green mountains in the background, by it was just so crowded that it was very hard to appreciate.
We walked back into the crowd for some dinner and found an udon (noodle) shop that wasn’t full of tourists. Then we walked around our hood – turns out the Tenryu-ji (one of the over 2000 in Kyoto!) temple and gardens were right there, as well as a bamboo forest. There were lots of shops and stalls, and guys offering tours on rickshaws.
There was a picturesque train station that only had two cable car-type lines running out of it. It was surrounded by an art installation called the Kimono Forest, where they covered lights in silk kimono fabric. There was also a $2 foot bath just on one of the train platforms. You can bet where I spent the evening.
It was only about two feet of water, with benches, tables and wifi. It was quite delightful.
The next morning we could not find breakfast, and ended up getting an early lunch at a touristy noodle house. Wanting to be adventurous, I ordered a dish that turned out to be cold soba with cold grated yam and a raw quail egg and cold broth – slippery and slimy and cold. NOT GOOD. John offered to trade with me and then he couldn’t take more than a couple of bites either.
We took a little scenic train ride through the mountains. You could ride back in a fishing boat through some light rapids, but we didn’t have time as we had to meet the rest of the Americans for dinner. So we stopped for a snack – John got takoyaki (fried octopus dumpling things) and I got fried cheese and yuba (turns out, the skin off cooked tofu). Both quite good!
We were heading for an okonamayaki (cabbage pancakes) place r\recommended to somebody in the group by an actual Japanese person, but our group of four got there first to find there was no room for us, much less the group of ten we eventually grew to be. We were a little early anyway, so when we saw a place across the street that had wifi and “Good Beer! Good Music! Good Ham!” of course we decided to wait for everybody there. And eat some ham. It was actually pretty “Good!”
Once everybody else arrived, we went across the street to a hot pot place (shabu-shabu), where we sat at two tables, ordered a lot of things that then got confused so I was never sure what exactly I was eating but it was delicious. Instead of cooking things in oil or dipping them in cheese, you cooked them in boiling soups.
Part of the group was telling us about this bonkers ice cream shop we all passed on the way there. I saw the wall of ice cream parfaits (and had already made a note to pitch a stop here after dinner) but didn’t notice the big attractions: giant parfaits in buckets, bowls, vats, some with hot dogs, shrimp tempura, or fries. There was even a $500 parfait! We headed there after dinner but (disappointingly) stayed pretty conservative with our ice cream choices .
Meredith R. Allen 
great post.