3/16

I'd always heard Kyoto was a beautiful city, but we must have picked all the wrong streets as we explored that day. The morning was spent schlepping our full packs from one lodging to the other, a good half hour walk into the heart of downtown. Fortunately we caught some interesting hidden architecture and our first blossoms (plum?)

We caught the afternoon tour of the Imperial palace at Kyoto, a huge complex of ceremonial buildings and ancient residences that are maintained beautifully, but are completely out of use. Like most old structures of great significance, the buildings themselves had been destroyed by fire and subsequently rebuilt countless times. As we toured the grounds (mindful of the important feet that had been there before), and appreciated the immaculate gardens literally fit for an emperor, Ben and I both felt the desolation and emptiness of the place. The tour guide pointed out the roofing materials for some of the buildings was made from dozens of layer of cedar bark shingling, held together with tiny bamboo nails and needed to be replaced every twenty years. The whole place was in a constant holding pattern, like a perfectly maintained ghost town.

I had been exhausted all day, and probably dealing with some culture shock. Since Ben knows me so well, he suggested we treat ourselves to a good and restorative meal, hang the cost. I had picked up a flier from a nearby restaurant earlier in the day that featured a meat map of a pig, showing the different cuts and what the chef liked to do with each. It had to be good. We entered the narrow and somewhat hidden door to a cool and peaceful room, with dark wood and modern lines. Each table had a deep stone basin and a large ventilation hood disguised as a lamp above. Tabletop cooking! We ordered the tasting menu, which included five cuts of pork, different pickles, nori flecked rice balancing a barely cooked egg yolk, and yuzu or apple sorbet. The waitress filled our basin with a special kind of charcoal, and I set to work with the tongs and meat. My recent completion of cooking school certainly paid off! We watched another party of teenagers disappear in billows of smoke and cries of "wait a minute!" (chyoto mate!)

I hadn't realized how much I missed cooking over the past week. At the end of the meal, I felt completely restored and grounded. Good food probably had something to do with this too, but the act of cooking and the connectedness to the process pulled me out of whatever shock I was in. I am hoping to further figure out my plans for the big "what's next" in life, and cooking has certainly asserted its importance.