Rain in Uji
Thursday 2004-11-18
Today was supposed to be my last full day in Kyoto. But how can I leave a city as beautiful as this? I asked if my hostel room was available for another night and found that it was. That was enough - I decided to stay in Kyoto for one more day and shorten my remaining time in Tokyo. It was raining lightly and I took the train to Uji, a city about 20 minutes away. It has a famous temple. I spent a couple of hours there. Then back to Kyoto and the hostel. The rainy weather gave me a good opportunity to begin to catch up on email and to do some writing on my web site. In the evening it was still lightly raining, but I decided to go out for dinner and some exploring. With my map in hand I walked about 3 miles to the Kiyomizudera temple (my favorite one). I thought they were going to light it up in the evening starting tonight, but it turns out that will start tomorrow night. They had some preliminary lighting set up tonight and even that looked fantastic. Then I decided to walk to a Spanish restaurant that the people at the hostel recommend highly. I had roasted chicken with garlic and a glass of Sangria. It was wonderful. Just perfect. I think it was the only non-Japanese meal that I've eaten here.