Eleventh Full Day in Japan.

Travel Blog 2 Minutes

We started the day by visiting the Kinkaku-ji Temple.

They call this temple the Golden Temple for good reason.
Sara at the Golden Temple.

The next temple we visited was was the Ryoan-ji Temple.

This is a small temple that has a beautiful lilly pond.
Lilly pond at the Ryoan-ji Temple.

We had lunch at a restaurant on the temple grounds.

You select your meal by punching a button on this machine. You then pay for the meal you selected and the machine spits out a ticket. You give the ticket to your waitress and she brings you your meal.
I had a chicken and rice bowl that was very good.

After lunch we went to a traditional tea room for a tea ceremony and a matcha making lesson. Sara and Dana absolutely love matcha.

What a nice place for a tea ceremony and a matcha making lesson.
This is the stove where they heat water to make the tea.
Our hostess demonstrating the tea ceremony.
A sweet before we make matcha.

Matcha is made from powdered green tea leaves. You put the green tea powder in you cup and fill the cup about a quarter full with hot water. You then take a small bamboo whisk and mix the water and green tea powder. After the water and green tea powder are mixed you rapidly whisk the mixture until you get a little bit of froth on the top. You are now ready to drink your matcha. You slurp your last sip of matcha as a sign of respect and to let your hostess know that you really appreciate the delicious matcha.

Dana, Sara and Dad enjoying their matcha.

After we finished our matcha we took an Uber to a sake brewery.

Sake brewing is all about chemistry.
We took a tour of the sake brewery. We had to wear hairnets, lab coats and disposable paper booties over our shoes. The brewmaster was a retired investment banker from New York City who was also a sake sommelier. After the tour we sampled a number of sakes with the brewmaster curating our selections. Did you know they make sparkling sake?
Dinner
Seared bonito.
Vichyssoise
Green salad.
Clam tomato sauce capellini.
Grilled red snapper.
Kobe beef filet. This is the best steak I have ever had by a long shot.
Cream cheese cake with raspberry sorbet.

That’s it from Kyoto. Tomorrow we head back to Tokyo. I hope you are having a great day wherever you are.

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Published by abeandmarkonthecamino

I've been retired from the Union Pacific Railroad since 2017. I've been planning to walk the Camino for about 6 months and can't wait to get started.

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