Today we went to Uji. This area has A LOT of history. It is known as the site of where the first novel of all time was written, "The Tale of Genji." I am told the story has more than 400 side characters and its super long. I saw a copy in a store and it looks like a dictionary... I say no thanks.
Uji is also the tea capital. There are tons of green tea shops that offer free tasting and a variety of green tea products. I got some green tea ice cream which was delicious. Other people got tea products to take back home as gifts.
We visited another temple in Uji. This one was on a lake and was really beautiful. The architecture is so aesthetic. Built by monks in the 11th century all of the designs and artwork are made to be well balanced. Everything is so well made and pleasing to the eye. Inside we were not able to take pictures of a lot of the ancient artifacts and decor.
There is a big river in Uji and it is very scenic. We all stopped there a while and just hung out and talked and it was fun.
The real adventure of the day came after the visit to the temple. Ryan's feet were still hurting him so we went to look for some more shoes on a tip from our contact, Martin, here in Otsu. We headed for this enormous department store calls Joscos. aaaaaaannnn..... Nothing above 11 again. Ryan is about to give up!
After failing to find shoes we headed back, but not before stopping at McDonalds. Funny side note, Ryan is no good at cash transactions. It is hilarious every time. We were laughing so hard about it. He is not used to this cash based society. First at the tea place his purchase was 200 yen. They have a 500 coin but Ryan got it confused with a 50 yen coin. He was trying to get the lady to accept his coin when it was really the equivalent of a nickel for a $5 purchase! He then realized this and reached in his wallet.. all he had was a 10,000 yen bill, equivalent of $100. Quote of the day by Ryan, "Imagine being in the states and someone tries to pay for something that is two dollars with a nickel then they pull out a hundred dollar bill." We were laughing so hard.
Oh man later that night me and Ryan wanted to go out on the town and have walk around downtown Kyoto. We went the same way we always go...but somehow we got lost. We ended up wandering around empty streets for 2 hours lost. We were so hungry so we stopped at some little restaurant and ate, which was actually really delicious. Then we headed to take the subway back and it had stopped running since it was after midnight!! We were a little scared but we were able to find a JR station down the street and the JR lines run til 1 in the morning. WHOO!
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