around Kyoto

Yesterday we walked for hours, going all around the stately park that is the grounds of the Imperial Palace.  A subway ride away, we admired the Golden Pavilion, a graceful large wooden structure covered in gold leaf.  Storybook surroundings; a beautiful pond.

Good to get some serious mild exercise, and the surroundings were interesting and gorgeous.  The weather absolutely perfect, cool and clear.  We covered it all six years ago, but it was fun to retrace our path.

We did a little shopping -- I got a 100-gram package of green tea powder from a tea woman outside the souvenir shop near the pavilion.   Interesting tasty stuff that you prepare by stirring hot water into a spoonful of the powder in a small cup, stirring it up into a kind of bright green caffeinated mud.  A delicate flavor.  She formally offered me my own personal "golden spoon," which was gold-colored plastic.

The Raven who starred in my novel Listen to the Raven (retitled Guardian) has followed us over the sea.  He came over and talked to us at an intersection near the palace; I snapped his picture.  Big fat fellow.



We had a fine lunch and dinner, with Peggy Rae Sapienza (sf fan from Washington) and her grandson Tom, and a curious breakfast, American with a strong Japanese accent.  Dinner was a huge bowl of beef soup with thick noodles, good hot sauce.  Good beer, too, though it seems strangely prosaic, since I drink a lot of Japanese beer at home.

It occurred to me yesterday to wonder about how familiar the menus are.  Have we become that used to Japanese standards, or have Japanese standards (for tourist places) evolved in an American direction?
Today we're on our own after breakfast.  Going to look into a standard tourist one-day bus tour – not very haut tourisme, but a good way to get an overview.

Joe