Day 10: Monday, October 26, 2009
Jan. 14th, 2011 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
radhardened(This post is a continuation of a travelogue for a trip I took to Japan back in 2009. Way behind, I know. But I'm determined to finish it.)
This rainy morning at the ryokan we enjoyed a "traditional breakfast" including grilled salted salmon, rice, miso soup, pickled vegetables, tofu, an egg, some fresh fruit, and green tea. I don't have an appetite for large breakfasts, so it was far more than I could eat.
We piled into a couple of taxis and headed over to Shoyeido for a tour and demonstration of the traditional Japanese Way of Incense. My friends Suzi and Peter happened to be in Japan and were fortunately able to join us there. (Though both they and I live in the U.S., it seems we only meet outside of it!) The company was a little touchy about photos in the processing facilities, if I remember, so I didn't take any photos there where the kneaded/pressed incense was molded into tiny ume blossoms or extruded into spaghetti-like sticks and dried. In a conference room flanked by displays of precious incense woods and ingredients used in kneaded incense, we watched as a company representative prepared a censer that we passed around and smelled—or, rather, listened to, as the Japanese put it—the warmed incense. In an alcove, a craftsman chipped away at pieces of agarwood or sandalwood to make the wood-chip type of incense. There is a connection between the Way of Incense and the Way of Tea, by the way: a piece of incense—the kneaded type in the warmer months, the wood-chip type in the cooler months—is added to the brazier as part of the charcoal arrangement procedure in tea events, and the incense container is considered an object of artistic appreciation to be examined by the guests. As an interesting point of comparison, a week after I returned from Japan my local tea group held a workshop in which we made kneaded incense ourselves. Here are the photos I took at Shoyeido.
We ate lunch at a nice nearby restaurant; this photo fails to do justice to the gorgeous presentation. It was delicious, too. I especially liked the crunchy lotus root and the juicy, broth-infused mushroom.
After lunch a bunch of us headed to the post office to ship boxes of accumulated stuff back home. Given that I'd nearly overstuffed my suitcases when I stepped off the plane ten days ago, this part was inevitable; in fact, some of what I packed in my box was clothing I'd brought that turned out to be unnecessary.
At dusk I met up with Peter, Suzi, and a few members of my group to visit Fushimi Inari-taisha, so far my favorite shrine. It's such a popular one that I fear my Japan-o-hipster cred will be revoked for writing that, but I'm fond of the fox statues and the long, torii-lined footpaths. Come to think of it, I commissioned a glass pendant from an Etsy seller using a photo I took there on my previous trip. Here are my pics from this visit.
Exiting the shrine and wandering about the town of Fushimi-ku, we tried but failed to find 380-year-old teashop Matsuda Toko-en. Perhaps it had already closed up shop for the day. We didn't notice many local dining options, so we settled on a run-of-the-mill ramen shop. It was good, but it was no Gogyo.
Our bellies full, we returned to Kyoto Station and took a little time to browse the basement food emporium in the station's Isetan department store. There I found Koyama-en, a brand familiar to me from tins of matcha at my tea school, serving cones of hojicha soft ice cream. That was heaven.
This rainy morning at the ryokan we enjoyed a "traditional breakfast" including grilled salted salmon, rice, miso soup, pickled vegetables, tofu, an egg, some fresh fruit, and green tea. I don't have an appetite for large breakfasts, so it was far more than I could eat.
We piled into a couple of taxis and headed over to Shoyeido for a tour and demonstration of the traditional Japanese Way of Incense. My friends Suzi and Peter happened to be in Japan and were fortunately able to join us there. (Though both they and I live in the U.S., it seems we only meet outside of it!) The company was a little touchy about photos in the processing facilities, if I remember, so I didn't take any photos there where the kneaded/pressed incense was molded into tiny ume blossoms or extruded into spaghetti-like sticks and dried. In a conference room flanked by displays of precious incense woods and ingredients used in kneaded incense, we watched as a company representative prepared a censer that we passed around and smelled—or, rather, listened to, as the Japanese put it—the warmed incense. In an alcove, a craftsman chipped away at pieces of agarwood or sandalwood to make the wood-chip type of incense. There is a connection between the Way of Incense and the Way of Tea, by the way: a piece of incense—the kneaded type in the warmer months, the wood-chip type in the cooler months—is added to the brazier as part of the charcoal arrangement procedure in tea events, and the incense container is considered an object of artistic appreciation to be examined by the guests. As an interesting point of comparison, a week after I returned from Japan my local tea group held a workshop in which we made kneaded incense ourselves. Here are the photos I took at Shoyeido.We ate lunch at a nice nearby restaurant; this photo fails to do justice to the gorgeous presentation. It was delicious, too. I especially liked the crunchy lotus root and the juicy, broth-infused mushroom.
After lunch a bunch of us headed to the post office to ship boxes of accumulated stuff back home. Given that I'd nearly overstuffed my suitcases when I stepped off the plane ten days ago, this part was inevitable; in fact, some of what I packed in my box was clothing I'd brought that turned out to be unnecessary.
At dusk I met up with Peter, Suzi, and a few members of my group to visit Fushimi Inari-taisha, so far my favorite shrine. It's such a popular one that I fear my Japan-o-hipster cred will be revoked for writing that, but I'm fond of the fox statues and the long, torii-lined footpaths. Come to think of it, I commissioned a glass pendant from an Etsy seller using a photo I took there on my previous trip. Here are my pics from this visit.Exiting the shrine and wandering about the town of Fushimi-ku, we tried but failed to find 380-year-old teashop Matsuda Toko-en. Perhaps it had already closed up shop for the day. We didn't notice many local dining options, so we settled on a run-of-the-mill ramen shop. It was good, but it was no Gogyo.
Our bellies full, we returned to Kyoto Station and took a little time to browse the basement food emporium in the station's Isetan department store. There I found Koyama-en, a brand familiar to me from tins of matcha at my tea school, serving cones of hojicha soft ice cream. That was heaven.
