Day Trip to Kyoto

I ran up to Kyoto for a day with my sister. We haven't traveled together for a long time, so I had been looking forward to this trip. The purpose of the trip was to enjoy trees aflame with red and yellow in the ancient city in Japan. As you know, in Kyoto, once there was a capital about 12 hundreds years ago. There are still lots of historical temples and shrines there.

Kyoto is about two and a half hours away from Tokyo. We took the bullet train at 6:53 am at Tokyo station and arrived at Kyoto at 9:14 am. In Kyoto station, the tour bus was waiting for us, and we headed to nothern part of the city, Ohara. We had free time in here for three hours, and we visited three temples, Hosen-in, Sanzen-in, and Jakko-in.

Hosen-in Temple
First, we visited Hosen-in temple. Hosen-in is famous for "flame garden." If you see the garden from inside of the temple, the pillars looks like a flame, and the view is like a picture. Sadly, it was a little bit early for perfect red leaves. But the garden seen from the temple was enough beautiful, and I could imagine how picturesque it was if all the leaves turn red.

Sanzen-in Temple
Like Hosen-in, about half of trees still green, but some parts had already turned red and yellow in Sanzen-in. It was like a mosaic of red, yellow and green. Maybe in a few days, all of them will have turned. We could enjoy the nice scene unique to only this time.

Jakko-in Temple
It took about 20 minutes on foot from Sanzen-in. The way to there was a country road. Looking up overhead, there was a persimmon tree! The contrast between the orange of persimmon and the blue of the sky was very pretty.
Jakko-in is a snug little temple. The turned leaves were falling from the trees and spread on the mossy ground. This contrast was also nice combination.

Looking around these temples, we also enjoyed having some snack, broiled rice cake, rice cracker, and warabi- mochi. The tour served us with bento (lunch box). We enjoyed those, and headed back to Kyoto city in the afternoon. We looked around Jisso-in temple and Renge-ji temple.

Jisso-in temple
This temple is famous for "floor maple." When you see the garden from the inside of the temple, the maple trees reflect on the polished flooring. I really respect like this spirit of ancestors. Old Japanese people enjoyed the garden not only itself but also with the constructions. They are good at assimilating the beauties of art and the one of nature. It was also unlucky that the leaves haven't turned yet. I wanna come back here in the best season and see perfect "floor maple."

Renge-ji temple
Before we looked around the garden, we listened to the chief priest at this Buddhist temple. He told about "the garden" in Buddhism. According to him, "the garden" expresses the universe and the Buddhist priests live there to keep that universe. He told us " Japanese garden is actually not a garden. It is not a place to walk around or take a rest, but is a place to learn and think about the universe and ourselves." Now I satisfied myself of the reason that I feel reverential at the Japanese garden... In this temple, the maidenhair trees were impressive. Yellow carpet lay all around.

Macaroon Cookie

The macaroon is a well-known cookie made from meringue and almond poudre.

Yesterday, my mother went to cake class and learned the recipe of the macaroon. She made two kinds, plain and chocolate.
The plain one is with butter cream between, and it's very soft and not so sweet.
The chocolate one is with chocolate cream & raspberry jam between and tastes sweeter and crunchy.

I really liked the plain one! I was almost gonna eat the rest of all...

Paella

Paella party!!
Since I brought back a bunch of squids caught in Los Angeles from work,
my mother fixed Paella with those tonight.
Besides squids, shrimps, clams, chicken and vegetables were in it. It was so tasty and went well with white wine!
Thanks mom for nice dinner!!

Italian Gelato from BABBI

Do you know the Italian way of having Gelato?

BABBI recommends how to eat Gelato as an Italian style.
Italian people serve at least two kinds of gelato on a corn. And after they taste each flavor, they enjoy the balance of the mixed flavor at the very end.
So if you go to BABBI, you can chose the size from double, triple, or five kinds. There's no single.

I chose "Chocolate" and "Yoghurt."
Chocolate was absolutely good! I imagined it was very heavy before I tried it, but it was not heavy but mild and rich.
Yoghurt was very fresh and light. I thought those were nice combination.

I heard there are more than 100 kinds of gelato there.
About 30 kinds of those are waiting for you, and those are changing everyday.
So it must be fun to go to BABBI occationally, and try every flavors!

Today's Lunch

I got smoked salmon from work yesterday.
Since I am working for seafood company, I can often get some seafoods...

So I decided to go getting Bagle!
After the work, I walked to Matsu-ya department in Ginza.
The department after 7 pm is always so crowded in downtown.
I squeezed my way through the crowd, and managed to get to the "Bagle & Bagle."

Since it was almost closing time, there were not so many kinds of bagle unfortunately.
I picked "Sesame" and "Volcano," which is coated with some kinds of cheese. I also got Italian cream cheese.

Today I brought those to the office and made my original bagle sand!
I enjoyed my lunch time with a special sandwich.

Of course, I also had my favorite dessert, "Aloe yoghurt."