Grateful for:
- Walking into a random restaurant for dinner and being the only customers there. The chef made us his specialty, Kyoto style noodles. The dish involved us crushing our own sesame seeds at some point and was quite interesting, not something we would have chosen on our own, but a combination of factors like no English menu and us being the only customers allowed for this experience.
- Having coffee and cake at another cafe at the markets, coffee was sub par but the cakes were quite delicious and lived up to their “home made” sign at the door.
- Watching animated movie “9”, nice graphics but a bit pointless and anticlimactic at the end, definitely not a 9 for me but maybe a 7/10
- Finding a pretty orchid fallen off a branch at a florist shop and a large maple leave straight from childhood. Kyoto maples have tiny leaves so it was nice to find one larger than my hand like they usually are in Russia.
- Buying a bunch of art postcards yesterday to study sumi-e strokes and always carry some with us to copy and practice should the inspiration strike us while on the road.
- Planning our ongoing travels after Japan trip is up.