Dinners

Some of my favorite parts of these trips are the dinners. Being in a new, somewhat uncomfortable place without the distractions of friends, homework, and activities causes us to focus on each other like almost no other time. Over dinner we tend to have good conversation, joking around and sharing our observations and remembering our favorite experiences.

We had two particularly great dinners in Kyoto. For the first, we walked to a restaurant in one of the back alleys of Gion on the recommendation of the hotel staff. We found a sign with the name of our destination and entered a small reception room. Promptly, a kimono-clad hostess emerged and escorted us directly back out onto the street. Evidently we had entered the back private club section of the restaurant. Once we found the entrance for common people, we realized they only took cash. We counted our cash on hand and, since we only had the equivalent of $250 (!), we had to be careful what we ordered and drank only free tap water. We ordered Sukiyaki, Shabu-Shabu (neither of which we knew what to do with), and tempura, all of which were delicious. No other diner said a single audible word the entire time we were in this small and crowded establishment. Nonetheless, we had a great time, sharing our food and enjoying each others' company.

The second notable dinner was on our last night in Kyoto and came about much more haphazardly. Monica and I had struggled a little to find the right restaurants: not too expensive, authentic Japanese, enough variety so everyone could find something they like. On Wednesday night, we decided to leave the kids at the hotel so we could go on a reconnaissance mission to locate the right restaurant. After wandering the streets or a while, a young friendly guy offered us the menu for an Italian restaurant. It looked good (or at least affordable..) so we told him we would be back with our kids. Thirty minutes later, as we rounded the corner into the allley where we thought the restaurant was located, there was our new smiley friend. He escorted us into a building and up a flight of stairs, where we were the only patrons in a large lounge-like area, complete with low leather couches and house music. The food was fantastic, the service excellent (as always), and we enjoyed having the place to ourselves. There was a lot of laughing and head-bobbing to the heavy beats in the music. As we left the restaurant, both our waiter/recruiter and the young chef escorted us out into the alley, standing in the middle of the street and repeatedly giving us the deep hip-bend bow as we thanked them and walked away.