Kyoto
was the imperial residence and capital of Japan for over 1,000 years.
It's a city with a rich history, and one that effectively packages and
promotes that history to both Japanese and international tourists. While
there we stayed at the lovely
Mikihan Inn.
This is the hotel's lobby. I got the sense that in Kyoto, every closed gate might be hiding this sort of treasure inside.
It was described as a traditional Japanese inn, with accommodations, food, and service similar to what has been offered for hundreds of years (with, of course, some modern amenities). Our two families stayed in a
large room, which had a table set with tea when we arrived. The floors
are covered with tatami mats. This traditional flooring material is very comfortable to walk on; Kevin and Chikako had it in all of their bedrooms. The
sliding panels in the middle of the room allowed us to turn the one big
room into two smaller rooms for sleeping.
I assume that children have been hiding in closets of this sort of inn for hundreds of years as well, or as long as people have been building homes with closets and other good hidey-holes. This was the coat closet. One side of the room had sliding panels, which opened to reveal big closets where the futons were stored. While we were out at dinner, the hotel staff put out the futons and transformed our room into a sleeping space.
Dinner
and breakfast were in a nearby room. If we had been a smaller party, we
would have eaten in our own room. The same woman served
us both dinner and breakfast, which is standard practice for this sort
of inn. She was delightful and doted on the children. When
she realized that the two American girls like nori, they had a nearly
nonstop supply for the rest of the meal.
Dinner was a bewildering array of courses--all served on small
dishes, and each of them among the most beautifully presented food I've seen in my entire life. This spread was just the first of many that came out. The theme of the meal was a celebration of
spring, with an emphasis on traditional, local, and seasonal foods.
(That sounds like it could be the description for a hipster foodie
establishment here in the States, but I gather it's just what they've always done.) Aaron and I would both describe ourselves as pretty adventuresome eaters, and we each thought that the meal included some delicious things and some that were hard to get down. I am incredibly grateful to have experienced this meal, and can also say that I prefer my Japanese food maybe not quite so traditional.
Lots of different fishy flavors, plus some fresh spring vegetables.
Pretty much anything is tasty after being deep fried. We weren't sure exactly what these were, but they were tasty and not too unfamiliar.
Fried tofu on a stick with miso sauce was something we had here and a few other places. It was a new flavor to us, but very nostalgic for Chikako. Kyoto is known for its tofu, and Chikako and Kevin both praised the high quality tofu we had in several of our dishes at this inn. Aaron and I realized that our palates are not refined enough to distinguish between good and average tofu.
We weren't told what this was before trying it. Aaron describes the "slimy looking pink thing" in front of this dish as the hardest thing to swallow during our trip. (Oh no, oh no. That honor goes to the raw squid served in its own entrails). After trying and disliking it, he asked what it was, and our hostess let us know it was horse sashimi. Yep, raw horse. She said she didn't tell us what it was at first because "Americans don't usually like that sort of thing." I appreciated that omission. I think it would have been harder to eat had I known what it was from the start. I didn't care for it, but I wasn't so horrified by it as Aaron was.
For the record, the kids got a much less challenging bento box dinner, so Juniper is not sulking in the corner to protest her food. (She was actually a terrific sport about trying new foods on this trip, even when she was suspicious about them.) For the most part, the girls were good travelers, but it's hard to be a kid on a big trip, and it's sometimes hard to be with a kid on a big trip. This was one of those hard times.
Meanwhile, Hazel discovered a love of natto, a type of fermented soybean. It kind of tastes like the edamame you'd get at an American Japanese restaurant, but covered in slimy snot. Or gooey deliciousness, depending on your perspective.
After dinner, we changed into hotel robes and headed downstairs to the
onsen, hot springs bath. The adult robes were not nearly so adorable as these ones for the kids.
Breakfast! A hearty start for a day of adventuring in Kyoto.
