400 yen moments

Ahoy,

Upon H's behest, I scheduled more days in Kyoto than Osaka. He says it's the best place outside of Tokyo. I was instructed to meet at 7-11 at the south end of Kyoto Station. After he found us, he revealed there was another convenience store also associated with 7-11 in the station. We made it to our hotel with his handy, dandy phone for navigation. I no longer needed to navigate or fuss with maps because we now had a trusty tour guide. We wandered the vicinity for a few minutes. Our hotel was a bike shop, so we rented bikes for the day. It was just drizzly, on and off as we departed and we remained optimistic it would let up. We were wrong.

The bikes allowed us to ride all over the NW part of Kyoto from shrine to shrine (READ: 400 yen picture to 400 yen picture) nearly running over people or getting nearly run over by cars. Our last shrine was just about to close but we got a quick walk-through anyway. The rain was not letting up and daylight was fading so we decided to cancel the rest of the journey and turn around. Best decision ever. The rain got rainier as we made the long journey back. I'm sure we looked a little worse for wear. I certainly felt waterlogged.

We dried off a little and reluctantly went back out into the rain to forage look for food. Most restaurants were completely full because it was the end of the year and there were a lot of work parties happening. Our final restaurant was just the kind of izakaya I wanted. My only request was that it be the kind of place where we take off our shoes and sit on the floor. Shoes are the worst. The food was not such a big deal to me because I planned on getting omusubis afterwards at a convenience store.

It was a super rainy day, compounded by the fact that we were riding bikes. I had no head covering and the boys were convinced I would get sick. I did not. It was a great adventurous day, one that will live in infamy as one of my wettest days.

memorably soggy,
jt