Visitors

This past week, my parents came out to visit me in Japan! (Hi mom and dad! Hee hee) It was definitely... hm, interesting haha.

I was originally going to say snarky things about it, but when I came home to an empty house, it hit me a little hard. I guess I do miss them a lot after all. That they came all the way out to my little house in the country town is really kinda touching for me, even if traveling with them was a bit stressful at times.

Wednesday after work, I caught the shinkansen up to Kyoto, where we were staying for a few days before traveling down to Takahashi. Some stupid idea popped into my head when I was waiting for the shinkansen. I was waiting in line for the nozomi train - the fastest shinkansen - when I noticed that the Hikari train (the fastest train that people with the rail pass can take, and generally the second fastest, while the kodama tends to be the slowest and stops at the most stations) had no people in it, while the nozomi was probably going to be very crowded. So hey, I figured, I'll just catch the hikari because it's not *that* much slower than the nozomi, and while it stops at more stations, that shouldn't add that much time onto it... right?

WRONG SO WRONG. Not only did it stop at all the stations between Okayama and Kyoto, but it also waited at said stations for sometimes up to 15 minutes! I watched THREE trains pass us at one station. THREE. OMG WAT. I was so angry, haha, but it turns out I timed it pretty well, because I arrived at the shuttle stop a few minutes before my parents did (which according to my mother, was a good thing, since they might have missed it otherwise, which sounds plausible to me).

We only stayed in Kyoto for a day and a half more, but I felt like almost every moment was packed! We trekked out to Arashiyama to see the monkeys - and holy cow, there were a TON of monkeys. You have to climb up a small mountain/large hill to get to the monkeys though (and I can proudly say that I am in better shape than my mother, and not too far behind my father but that's okay because he runs every day and I... I sleep). So worth it! We went right around noon, so there were a ton of monkeys hanging around (lols) despite our prior worries about them being cloistered away due to the sporadic showers we were having (I got a super cute umbrella out of it though!).

There must have been like... twenty monkeys. Or well, to be proper, Japanese Macaques. Macaques! The potato and hot spring primates! That's the same kind of monkey as Imo (the macaque who first introduced the phenomena of washing potatoes in the ocean to add a salty flavor to it - also HA I totally understand the name now. Clever scientists.). I saw a macaque hitting two rocks together (tools!) and geeked out a little bit. Or a lot of bit. You don't understand (or maybe you do?). Cognitive Science (one of my majors) was like... 40% stuff about primates (mostly chimpanzees, bonobos, and some macaques and orangutans). I detest primates now because of that, but seeing them in person was pretty crazy.

After the mountain, we decided that we would go check out some of the shops and then some of the shops along the street and then walk over to the oldschool shopping area in the Arashiyama district. The tentative plan was to do that, and then head over to the Gion district to hopefully see it at night (and unbeknowst to me, if I had bothered to read the signs earlier, I would have noticed that that whole area was doing a special light up that we could have gone to. REGRETS, I HAS THEM).

Unfortunately, walking over to that district was a very... not great idea seeing as how we were a) somewhat on a time schedule and b) my mother has a stamina bar that decreases as she walks and decreases at a faster rate when going up or down stairs. Don't get me wrong, the area was pretty, but I wish we had gotten a taxi or something... By the time we got there, most of the shops were closing up since it was nearly 5 -- and all things that are country-esque or oldtimey Japan-esque (and government buildings and banks) close around 4:30 or 5. We did get to go into a really cool bamboo shop (they gave us free tea!) and we walked along and it was pretty and stuff. But it took us nearly an hour and a half to get back to Kyoto station (and the train ride is only 20 minutes). By the time we got back we were pretty tired, and my parents thought it would be a good idea to stop by the hotel and drop things off before heading out.

My mom estimated it would take us about an hour - I was hoping for half an hour or something, but as usual, my mother was spot on. We didn't get into Kyoto station until around 7:30 and we didn't get to the restaurant (we had to wait) until around 8, and then we were finished around 9 and at that point we kinda gave up on the Gion (REGRETS. Though, by the time we got there they would have finished the light up at Kiyomizu Temple). Instead we went to the Lipton restaurant (eee Lipton has a restaurant!) and had tea and cake instead. They had berry tart too, though it was a bit sour.

Probably was better we didn't go to the Gion district, since it was clear from our attempt to get there the next day that we had very little idea how public transit worked. Or well, *I* wanted to take the bus since it would only cost 220 yen to get there and we didn't need to worry much about walking or whatever. My plan was to bus to kiyomizu then walk to the Gion. Or take the bus the website told us. But no. We took the subway instead - the subway, NOT the private train line that stops a block away from the gion. Then we got off at a super far station and I swear we walked for at least an hour before we were in the Gion proper. As expected of going somewhere with dad though. Sigh.

We didn't actually go all the way up to Kiyomizu though. We only went to the part where the temple starts, because we were looking for this tofu restaurant we had eaten at seven years ago. I mean, I had also kind of assumed that it would just be sitting there the same, and the thought that it could have changed didn't enter my head until we were standing there (and was accompanied with a facepalm). I was a little cranky from having to walk so far and it being rather late for lunch and (probably most of all) for my time schedule to be thrown off by somewhere around an hour at least, but man, was lunch amazing. We ended up at a place that did Yudofu and also Yu...ba... I think? It's the tofu that you skim off the top. Lots of work, that one. I didn't have the patience. The yudofu (boiled tofu) was amazing though. Most of the meal was tofu, but we also got - swear to god - some of the best tempura I've had in my life. NOMMMM. I think they put the salt into the batter or something. Everything was vegetarian though, and I actually got really really full. I felt super healthy too! Yay!

It made up for the fact that later that night we had Kobe beef, godmeat of beef. Seriously. I've always heard that it melts in your mouth, but I did not know how beef could literally melt in your mouth until that dinner. It was pricey (100,000 yen for the super fatty one and 140,000 yen for the fatty big one!) but OH GOD SO WORTH IT. Also, how often are you going to eat this stuff? But I got the sirloin steak (a nice balance between having a lot of meat -- which the rib steak had -- and tender, which obviously was the tenderloin). But with the super fatty one, my sirloin was just as tender as the not-as-fatty tenderloin my mom got and when you put it into your mouth, the juices just kind of seeped out and your mouth would fill with ridiculously tasty wonderful meat flavored juice. I was so unbelievably happy. Mouth full of meat juice hahaha.

So worth the expensive price tag. I've never chewed my meat that much in my life haha.

Oh, the place we went to - and I highly recommend it - was called "Moriya" 「モーリヤ」and we went to the "honten" or main branch restaurant near Sannomiya in Kobe. We reserved early, so we got to sit next to the grill where we watched them cook our delicious meat (with less of a flair than benihana, but I think it made up for that with the quality of the meat). The chef who was cooking our food was really nice, and he gave us really fantastic recommendations for flavor combinations for our meat and veggies (my personal favorite was just salt and pepper, but a little bit of wasabi as well was pretty good. My dad was a fan of the wasabi/salt/pepper combo and my mom a fan of salt/garlic chip).


Man though, that was the best meal of my life so far I think. Because you know what's better than super fatty Kobe beef? Super fatty Kobe beef that someone else has paid for.

Love you mom and dad :D

You know, I'm actually considering lifting the self/mom-imposed ban on having my parents as facebook friends. Almost. Maybe. Still kinda wary about that though.