Manga Tour Day 6: Kyoto with a Dash of Tezuka & Mizuki

After several days of rain and clouds, the sun finally came out in Tokyo on Day 6 of my Pop Japan Travel / Mind Over Manga Tour adventure. Too bad that was the day we left for Kyoto, the cultural and historical heart of Japan, where the rain had followed us.

After a smooth and speedy trip via the Shinkansen (high speed bullet train), we arrived at Kyoto Station, where I parted ways with the rest of the tour group for the day to do some independent exploration. After a few days of scheduled activities, I opted to enjoy some leisurely, unstructured time to take in the sights at a slower pace. As it turned out, most of my time was spent exploring the train station, which had transformed since I had last been to Kyoto into a multi-level entertainment, dining and shopping center.

One of the surprises was discovering a mini-shop featuring souvenirs featuring Osamu Tezuka's pantheon of characters mingling with the yokai (Japanese ghosts / spirits) denizens of Shigeru Mizuki's Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro. In addition to posters advertising the recently released live action Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro movie, the Shigeru Mizuki Museum in Sakaiminato and the Osamu Tezuka museum in Takarazuka, there were numerous Atom x Kitaro mashup type souvenirs for sale, including Kintaro style picture candy, featuring faces of Astro Boy and Kitaro, towels, t-shirts and mugs.

Also in the station is the Kyoto branch of Osamu Tezuka World, a kind of mini-museum paying tribute to the Godfather of Manga. Tucked away in a corner near the Hotel Granvia Kyoto, Osamu Tezuka World comes across as a slightly neglected step-sister of the much larger museum in Takarazuka. The gift shop has some interesting souvenirs (like a packaged set of Black Jack surgical scrubs), a few life-sized statues of Princess Sapphire and Black Jack plus a photo booth, but the rest of the "museum" if you can call it that, requires a 200 yen admission fee (about $1.90) to watch a short film about Tezuka's life, browse through a library of his numerous manga volumes and a few anime shorts in an adjacent mini-theater. It's not worth a special trip to check this out, but if you've got time to kill in Kyoto-eki, it's an OK place to pick up a souvenir or two.

I much more enjoyed my lunch in Kyoto-eki at Tokichi Nakamura restaurant, which specializes in green tea. My lunch set of cold green cha-soba (green tea noodles), rice with tiny whole fish / tea leaf sprinkle, takuan (radish pickles) and green tea gelatin with a mochi ball and sweet azuki beans was refreshing and delicious -- and at 1050 yen (about $9.50), quite a deal. The elegant and modern setting also made for a peaceful retreat from the bustling station below.

I also browsed through the immense Isetan department store, which is a major hub in the station. 9 floors of clothing, stationery, toys, kitchenwares and designer goods, with two basement floors of food stuffs for sale and a top floor with restaurants galore made for a fun shopping experience. Skipped past the clothing floors since I've pretty much figured out that's a lost cause for me (see Harajuku report) and instead took in the Okinawa festival on the 9th floor, and had some sata andagi (fried doughnut balls) and brown sugar castella cake balls stamped with a shisa (lion-dog) face, and took in a bit of the Okinawan music playing in the outdoor amphitheater outside of the store.

Once I had my fill of shopping, I headed to Sanjusangendo Temple to see the Thousand Kannon statues. Pictures don't do this place justice, and it being a sacred place, tourists aren't allowed to take photos of the inside anyway. But it was really humbling and special to see those silent, golden glowing statues with their serene expressions -- each slightly different than the other all in long rows, lined up 10 deep, along with 28 guardian deities in front. I accidentally met up with the rest of the group, but then opted to split off again while they went off to Kiyomizu-dera, one of the most beautiful temples in Kyoto. I should have rejoined the group then, but well, it was one of those things.

Later, we met up at our hotel, the Righa Royal Hotel, which was only a few blocks from the station and everyone split off to find dinner. I hit the Bic Camera (also in the station) to buy a new suitcase and ended up getting a camera bag and some accessories for my camera as well. The only downside was the inordinate amount of paperwork needed to get my duty-free status confirmed -- but otherwise, a great spot to buy tech goodies.

Just for the heck of it, I tried some authentic Kyoto kaiseki cuisine at Kyoto Wakuden, which was on the 11th floor of Isetan in their "Eat Paradise" section. There are lots of tasty options in Eat Paradise, including Tonkatsu Wako, a place that specializes in fried pork cutlet, Ten-ichi, which is a tempura specialty restaurant, and Mollette, which is all about omelets and eggs. Since I was dining alone, I wanted to be more adventurous -- so into Kyoto Wakuden I ventured.

Make no mistake, it was a gorgeous restaurant, with amazing, sweeping views of the Kyoto skyline at night. The cold sake, served out of a green bamboo carafe was superb and all six courses of the food was beautifully presented. But what I forgot to take into account was that the menu would be written in elegant Japanese calligraphy and therefore completely illegible to me. I pretty much said "omakase" (I trust you, Mr. Chef), picked one set priced menu and hoped for the best.

Kyoto kaiseki cuisine, much like Kyoto itself, is artfully refined and features subtle flavors. Which is fine, but it can also be a tad... well... bland. It wasn't a bad meal by any stretch of the imagination, and some of it was quite good, really, but I guess I probably would have been better off going to someplace where I could point at the plastic food in the window. I left the restaurant a little bit drunker, a little bit poorer but a little bit wiser. Next time, I'll try the tonkatsu restaurant instead. Ha!

Next on the itinerary: a visit to the Kyoto International Manga Museum, then we head to Osaka.

Image credit: © Deb Aoki