Monday, November 8, 2010

Travel Weekend Part 1 - Kyoto




On Thursday we headed out for a big travel adventure. We went from Tokyo to Kyoto on Thursday. We stayed in Kyoto Thursday night and took a train to Hiroshima for the day on Friday. We went back to Kyoto Friday night and on Saturday after lunch with Kan's Japanese family we rented a minivan and traveled to Ise. From Ise we went to Nagoya, dropped off the car and our friend who lives there, then took the train back to Tokyo. On Sunday night, we finally had Miyako in bed at 11PM! She was one tired little girl.

This first blog post is from our time in Kyoto. Unfortunately I do not have the family photos as they are on Kan's computer. Once he emails them to me, I will upload them to the blog. When we arrived in Kyoto on Thursday we went to Kan's parents house for dinner. His mom made us scallops for our appetizer and meat loaf and rice for dinner. It was yummy. For dessert we enjoyed this beautiful birthday cake for Miyako as we were there the day after Miyako's birthday.

We saw Kan's parents again on Saturday for lunch. They took us to a very traditional Japanese restaurant on top of this hill overlooking Kyoto. We were in our own tatami room and the women served us in traditional Japanese garment called kimonos. I did get a picture of our main course. It was absolutely beautiful and delicious. The name of the restaurant is called Kyoyamato. It used to be a meeting place for government officials, emperors and high profile people in Japan when the emperor was still in Kyoto. At this meeting room, they had a secret meeting and decided to end the shogun's rule and let the emperor become the head of the government. Kan's dad referred to it in his toast as a "bloodless revolution."

Again, I will post more family pictures once I get them. Here is a picture of Miyako's cake and our lunch.

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