Third times a charm

Okay, the first two times I tried sushi were also good, but this last place was out of this world.

The conference went two days--after the second day one of the attendees, Tamara Kolda, told me that she still hadn't had a chance to try sushi. She'd looked up a place well away from our hotel in the Lonely Planet Kyoto guide, and the adventure began!

I'm happy to say I only got us lost once or twice, although finding the place once we were on the right street was still nontrivial. But oh so worth it. Other places has a clear counter with the fish laid out for the customers to see. This place has an aquarium where they'd take out something as needed. There was virtually no English spoken, but that's the beauty of sushi--point to the blowfish on the menu, and next thing you know, you're trying a delicacy.

If I remember right, Den Shichi was the name of the place, and it was excellent!

Temple central

Kyoto! Imperial capital of Japan for a thousand years, much of which time people were required to register as Buddhists with a local parish. The result: 1600 Buddhist temples, and 300 Shinto shrines. Add to that that Kyoto was one of the few large cities not burned to the ground during WWII, and you have a fascinating city with a reminder of history around every corner.

Before my second conference started, I just had an hour of daylight to see one temple. I chose Nanzen-Ji based on its proximity to a subway station, so I thought it would be easy to find. Even thought it rained continuously, the grounds still had trees turning their autumn colors (although unlike Tokyo, most of the ginko trees had shed their leaves by the time I arrived.)

Of course being Kyoto, there was another temple between Nanzen-Ji and the subway stop: Konchi-In shrine contains a temple as well as a shrine dedicated to the deification of Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu built in 1628.



The picture above is "The Crane and Turtle Garden", an expanse of raked white gravel fronting artfully placed stones.