With another warm, rainy day ahead, we were glad of having fortuitously pre-booked some indoor activities. First up - a quick look around Kyoto's Manga museum and library. I hadn't realised what depth this field had, nor it's long history dating back 150 or so years before photography. As well as the better known comics, there were historical pictures of political and social commentary, educational pictorial stories for kids, and Manga from all over the world. Next, we walked 20mins south to the Nishiki Market - Kyoto's version of a Grand Bazaar - to meet our guide and chef Taro-San who was going to give us a guided tour of the market, and then take us back to his house to cook up some real Kobe beef. The undercover market itself ran across 5 or 6 city blocks, with various side streets thrown in. There was all sorts of food vendors, sweet stalls, a knife shops (with a history at the market dating back 450 years), chopsticks, a small amount of clothing and souvenirs. We snacked our way along the market with Taro explaining all the weird and wonderful items in view - though he pointed out that taking photos of individual stalls was not really considered good form. Shame as the colours and variety were amazing. Highlights for the kids was drinking ruby grapefruit straight from the fruit, incredible fried chicken, and the many sweet stalls (not quite as sugary as I expected); while ours was the yakitori duck and scallops. We caught a bus back to Taro's house to meet his wife Yoshiko and daughters, as well as a couple from LA who were joining us for the cooking class. On the menu for us to prepare was: Miso soup - with the dashi made from scratch Dashimaki tamago- Japanese omelet Kinpira - stir fried root vegetables including burdock root, lotus root, sesame seeds Fukumeni - simmered tofu and daikon radish Kobe beef - what more can I say. Found out quite a few interesting facts about Kobe beef: restaurants around the world have been claiming their beef was Kobe beef for about a decade, but it was in fact only first exported about 4 years ago. Only 3000 cows are slaughtered per year for the annual quota and each comes with a certificate of authenticity, including who it's grandparents were, who the farmer is, etc. Our steak came from a cow was born on March 25th, 2014! The fat melts at room temperature- about 20 degrees, while most beef fat melts at around 45. I've never seen such marbelling before, nor tasted any steak so mouth-watering. The only disappointment was that it didn't seem to touch the sides and was gone before I blinked! Very gracious hosts and an afternoon to remember.