Sunday morning we had a big breakfast – Kuniko cooked up miso soup, rice, and we had some yogurt and orange juice on the side. I cooked up tamago-yaki which turned out pretty good. Then we were off to Kyoto.
We pulled into Kyoto station right at 10 a.m., and met up with Yasu and Reiko, his girlfriend. It was my first time meeting Reiko, and Yasu’s first time meeting Kuniko. Antoine showed up almost 40 minutes late because he got on the wrong train, which is something of a habit of Antoine’s.
Everyone gathering together was a meeting of three different parts of my life in Japan – Antoine is a native Californian and someone that came over on the same airplane as I. Yasu lives in the same apartment complex as I so we get together socially every once in a while. Kuniko is someone that I used to see just during work, but lately more and more after work. None of them had ever met the others, but had always heard stories through me. I was a little worried that bringing all these people together might be weird, and that it wouldn’t work, but it actually turned out great.
Of all of us, Reiko was the only one that didn’t really speak English, but Yasu and Kuniko kept her busy in Japanese. Kuniko and Yasu hit it off really well as they have a shared interest in learning English to further their careers, and Antoine got along with everyone with his sense of humor and antics. I had no reason to worry.
We all got on a bus and headed over to see some of the more famous sights in Kyoto. Because time was tight we only saw a few highlights, but the blossoming cherry trees made every place just a bit more dramatic. Yasu was a great tour guide, and he led us through the streets quickly and efficiently, sometimes cutting through alleys and bypassing huge tourist groups backing up the streets and sidewalks.
After visiting some temples and a park, we went to lunch at an upstairs okonomiyaki place. The okonomiyaki was great, and we had good conversations in both English and Japanese. Antoine told a few stories in English, and Yasu and I downed a couple of beers. After lunch we went down a few more alleys and emerged back at Kyoto station, just in time for a free concert by Quruli. We had missed out on getting free tickets, so we set up in front of a giant TV to watch the show. We were pretty far away from that, though, and so Antoine, Kuniko and I stayed only for about half the show before we said goodbye to Yasu and Reiko.
We shared a train part of the way back with Antoine – we wanted him to get back OK – and he had us laughing while he danced and swayed with the motion of the train. Some of the other passengers watched him with something close to horror as he talked loudly in English and danced around in a completely sober drunken swagger.
Kuniko and I decided to go out for dinner in Osaka since we were getting ready for our big trip to Tokyo early the next morning. We went to an Indian food place right near her house. The food was really good – another great reason to visit Osaka. While ordering I noticed that one of the dishes was called Karai, which happens to mean “spicy” in Japanese. I asked the waiter if it was spicy, and he assured me that it wasn’t, just a coincidence on the name. I was a little disappointed, but since it looked so good I ordered it anyway. The cook must have overheard us and decided to burn me a bit, because the dish arrived and I was sweating as I powered down the food. It was so good. The waiter was on top of things and kept bringing water, and Kuniko got a big laugh out of watching me sweat while I ate.
We shopped for some goodies for the trip on Monday, and then went back and crashed out early – our legs were tired from walking all over Kyoto.
