Wandering Teacher - Japan

Berenice, a fellow teacher from the Lesson Study Project, is also visiting Kyoto so we decided to meet up and visit the famous 400 year old Nishiki Market. This market is a treasure trove of everything food related and more! Prepare yourselves for a food ride (similar to my food posts in Taiwan). There are easily over 100 food stalls that offer local products and food. The place is MASSIVE! If you look closely you can see that the market goes on and on and on. Those little babies are tiny octopus that have been stuffed with an entire hard boiled quail egg. Of course I had to eat one. It was yummy!!! Those are little cuttlefish below, also with an egg inside. EAT NOW OK!! Berenice ate a cricket (in the bowl above) along with pickled something or other. The Japanese take pickled items seriously and I totally LOVE it all.  Fish....it's everywhere! If you don't like fish, Japan isn't the place for you!  There is so much specificity in shops in...

Kyoto is the land of shrines and temples - there are over 1600  of them. When I left the Bamboo Grove it was in a torrential downpour. I was absolutely soaked through but decided to walk past the town to get to the train. I'm already wet so I  visited two Buddhist temples along the way. There are plenty of Shinto shrines in Kyoto but there seem to be as many Buddhist temples. I came at the right time because many are open to the public right now so I'm taking advantage of that. The clouds were hanging low over the mountain which made the greens stand out against the soft grays and beige of the clouds and stone. The Tenryu-ji Temple is the most important temple in this district and is ranked first among the city's five great zen temples. It was established in 1339 (and we think our country has history) and the garden that surrounds the Temple has survived the centuries in its original form.  It's just magic! It was tempting to hop a ride ...