🍱 Delicacy of the Day

Koan Sound - Spirals Unfold

Alright this is admittedly the second song from British Creature duo Koan Sound in a week.

But there’s a good reason for this.

It’s a song that perfectly encapsulates things going off the rails.

Their ability to transform stories into sounds is what is magical thing about them.

It starts slow, then picks up in a wave of energy you can’t escape.

There’s no other way to explain it other than “audible unfolding”.

As with everything Koan Sound, the melody, sound design, and composition is ON POINT.

If you want gold-class electronic music, it doesn’t get better than this.

Njoy.

💭 Quick Drivel

So this is it. The final full day in Japan.

To celebrate, I killed the rest of the cereal and yogurt while watching some Japanese TV.

The content in there is kinda crazy.

The movies can be unhinged at times and they have reaction youtube channels, but it’s like live tv productions?

Of course there’s baseball and also a channel for learning english.

Very cool experience!

I recommend everyone who travels to put on the TV for 30 minutes and see what’s going on. You might find an interesting thing or two.

After that it was time to hit the ground. There was A LOT to cover.

This was a temple that was right next to the house and was also the bus stop for the main bus that took me where to the next destination.

It was a more “modern” looking temple.

I was still collecting Goshuin stamps so I walked in and talked to a young guy who was manning the counter.

It seemed that was his first time doing a seal as he seemed genuinely stressed after I asked him for one.

After fighting the impulse to get another person to deal with this, he ended up trying it himself.

And so he did it looking at the paper tutorial next to his desk.

I would say he did pretty well! I tried letting him know but the language barrier was hard to get over.

This was the last item on the to-do list.

It was unsurprisingly massive and took a good 2 hours to explore in full.

Wasn’t able to really go inside the palace (since I think it’s still in use?) but the outside was fantastic.

The gardens are of course, lush and beautiful:

The curious thing about the palaces is that aside from the larger-than-average structures, 80% of the other land is empty and used for random fields or gardens.

Maybe there’s a lesson there but I can’t put my finger on it.

I was determined to eat some more Yuba Cheese which meant heading to the holy realm of Arashiyama.

I also had some matcha ice cream at the request of Sam (the person I met a couple days prior)

It was alright. Tasted like frozen grass.

I saw a lookout spot in Google craps Maps and went to check it out.

So I entered the random forest to do a bit of “lightweight hiking”.

After a good 15 minutes of getting lost from following google craps “directions” I got to THIS spot:

I sat down for 5 minutes to enjoy the beauty, and then started making my way to a temple that I saw on the map.

While on the way there I took one wrong turn and ended here:

So I guess this place was real and actually bigger than whatever Google Craps told me to visit.

It only took getting lost to find it!

This was the final temple I entered.

This temple was right outside the bamboo forest.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

The inside was full of people escaping the insane humid heat inside the shade.

I think there were 2 or 3 people outright KNOCKED OUT.

Can’t judge too much as I almost joined them.

Regardless, after an hour of bumming in there, it was time to get moving.

This is a MUST go even if you hate curry.

I don’t know what they put in the sauce but its the most delicious curry in existence.

Pair it with some fried chicken katsu and you have a meal you’ll think about years later.

They gave me a free spoon for giving a 5 star review (which they actually deserved) which I still haven’t used since.

This location also had manga that you could read while eating.

…which would be cool if they didn’t make the food in 5 minutes.

After the amazing meal it was already 6 pm which meant sunset was coming shortly.

So I rushed to get to the next location to see the final sunset.

Yeahhhh, I could NOT get enough of this place.

“But Hz, didn’t you say the last temple was the final one you stepped in?”

Yes, that is correct.

Because when I tried to go in to see the sunset from the same spot as last time…

THEY WERE CLOSED.

Yeah so… that day that I went was part of a 3-day special for the Obon festival where they stay open until 9pm.

(Which further proved my belief that it was fate being there that day)

No biggie, I could still watch the sunset from outside the temple:

Unfortunately it was another one of those cloudy sunsets.

Which wasn’t be a big deal until I realized I never got to see an actual sunset.

Oh well, that’s what NEXT YEAR IS FOR BAYBEE!!!!

However this “lackluster” sunset got made up by seeing Gion come to life as I made my way down.

After wandering around and making my way to the Last Dinner I came across this INSANE place.

This was probably one of the coolest goodbyes to “old kyoto”.

It was that final “frozen in time” place I’d see for this trip in Japan.

Looking back at these pictures, it feels unreal how seamlessly it combines both.

What better way to end a 16-day bender than with a conveyor belt sushi experience!

This place was absolutely BANANAS.

Had to wait a good 30 minutes for a table.

Once seated you order from this huge screen where you can also play games from.

I ended up not eating as much as

There was this set where you could make your own sushi roll which I quickly got and proceeded to make a huge mess.

Regardless, it was the right amount of fun and the perfect last dinner.

That final bus hits different.

The whole trip thus far was replaying on the way back.

It had been a crazy 16 days, and there was still 28 more to go.

Regardless I was grateful for all the experiences, meals, and adventures.

I ended up sleeping extremely late as I waited last second to pack, and there was quite a lot of stuff to pack.

So there you have me at 12am halfway packed and realizing its an early wakeup tomorrow for checkout.

But come on, after everything thus far this is just another chewsday.

So as I like to say in these situations…

Hz

P.S. TRIP SCORE: (14 days)

Hours slept total: 98.

Times phone died: 6.

Times lost/taking the wrong train: 18.

Strangers met and talked to: 29

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