Day 184

It is 2am and technically its tomorrow, but I am determined to write each day a bit, so…

After a late start, we walked to the department store a few tiny alleys away and entered Food Heaven, where I realized one of the few things that bugs me about not being rich – not being able to buy the food I want. Walking through one carefully prepared and decorated setup to another, feeling overwhelmed by the incredible sights sprawling in front of me – colors, textures and smells calling my  name – I ached to be rich. Ached is the correct term, because food is my thing, my pleasure, and with every step I was seeing some of the most wonderful specimens of it I have ever seen…and I could not have it all.

We settled for some sushi, because we have taken a pact of having it every day while in Japan, and because it was the cheapest delicious thing on offer.

Then I put an offer out to the family, because its a shame to come all the way here and not indulge in the offerings and/or maybe I am simply an addict that could not resist the temptation (the details are not that important), to splurge one day and give each of us $50 budget for food to be spent at will. I wanted to add in a few clauses of not spending more than 50% on sweets and having to buy only things we havent eaten before, but I think Mr.Blab will be fighting this one. My food craving brain was also thinking that parents should get more of the budget and maybe 60-40 is a better ratio, but nothing was set in stone. I will keep you updated, most likely with all the donuts the man can eat.

Then we walked through more food bonanza, a whole street of it in fact, and finally reached Gion. This is one of the main tourist attraction in Kyoto, but you wouldnt really know it. Japan somehow manages to keep the tourist monster at bay and nothing ever feels fake or set up just to get your money. Authenticity and a feeling of being here (instead of anywhere else)  never leaves us and I love that about this culture and country.

We walked some more, saw a geiko/meiko in a taxi, which at least means she was real, unlike the sightings most people get – which are actually tourists dressing up for fun. Then finished the day with a lovely walk through the warm night air back home. Not before filling our bellies with some cheap, but delicious noodles.

I think I need to open up a “Donate to the Glutton” account, because otherwise I will have to eat my first born son, who mind you still refuses to walk more than 20 meters, unless he is perched on the Great Wall.

Go figure.