I'm going to start this entry by declaring that I, officially, am giving up trying to predict, or even understand, Japanese Spring weather. At least on this trip.

Up until now we've had an unpredictable and at times infuriating mix of rain and semi-sun.
There have been a couple of days recently, and Kanazawa comes to mind, where I've considered gathering 2 of every animal and building an ark.
After today we're now all sunburnt. Today wasn't overly hot. Definitely t-shirt weather, but just comfortable, and for much of the day we were under cherry blossom trees or inside buildings and busses, but still we managed to get burnt.

In a manner to which I'm now becoming accustomed, the day started off with insufficient sleep. Deliberately this time however, since today is the day that the Kurobe Alpine Route tickets go on sale across the country. And I wanted some. Actually, I wanted to stake a claim to being one of the first people to get some, which I achieved.

The Alpine Route "Kurobe Option" tickets are sold at various JR offices across the country starting from today, and ticket offices open at 5:30am. So with the alarm set for 5am, Charlotte and I headed out to be on their doorstep as they opened.

The Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route (see this link) is a mountainous scenic route utilising various modes of transport (train, bus, cable car, ropeway, walking) to get from Toyama on the Western side of the Japanese Alps, to Shinano-Omachi on the Eastern side.
It was an item on the bucket list to do, and we sacrificed a few days in Kyoto to do it, so hopefully it will be worth the trouble.

The bad news is, as has been a familiar story on this trip, the weather is supposed to be frightfully woeful. This, combined with the dire warnings on the Alpine Route website of unbearable levels of crowding in the opening week of the Alpine Route means that I almost did not buy the tickets. The tickets are not cheap, and since it is predicted to be a horrible, miserable day, purchasing was probably really, really dumb.
But, had I not purchased them I'd spend the rest of my life wondering whether I should have gone to the Alpine Route on that day back in 2017, so at least this way I'll know.

So stay tuned for Monday night's blog post. It's guaranteed to be one of bitter disappointment and frustration after a full day of heavy rain and insane crowds.

The Kyoto station area is generally my least favourite place in Kyoto. Always super crowded we try to avoid the area unless we're arriving to, or leaving Kyoto. Today however before 5:30am the area was quite pleasant. With pretty much nobody else around aside from cleaners and some delivery men working or sleeping in their trucks, it was eerily quiet. It's a view of Kyoto station which I don't think a big percentage of people would experience.

Purchasing some breakfast items from a Lawsons convenience store near the station, we headed back to our guesthouse, and filled in time until it was time for us to set out on our designated "Kyoto Sakura" day. Since the cherry blossoms frustratingly resisted blooming when we were last in Kyoto a week ago, today was the day we decided to head out and see them, just to say we'd done it.

Setting out after 9am, we headed East along the same path to the river that we covered yesterday, and continued on for another 15 minutes (30 if you count stopping at shops along the way) to the insanity of the hill leading to Kiyomizudera.
Not a fan of this place to be honest. What's at the top is nice, but it's a tiny little street packed with pedestrians and tour busses in uncomfortably close proximity to one another, as the humans generally try to get up the hill, and the vehicles try to get down it. And neither modes of transport is fast, since each is only as slow as it's slowest member.

And for the humans walking up the hill is generally, in my experience, the American or Chinese tourist. These people when walking along in a group of a few thousand other people going in the same direction as them, on a 2ft wide piece of side walk, see something like like, or get a desire to take a photo of themselves, and just stop. They wont step out of the way, they wont check who's behind them.

They just stop. And then spend anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 minutes either talking to each other, loudly, taking vein photos of themselves, or just looking around like they're waiting for a bus, or a fireworks display, or something.
Meanwhile whoever is directly behind them has to come to a sudden stop having the person behind them crash into the back of them, and the person behind them does the same until you have a human nose to tail accident which extends for about a kilometer down the hill as people who were moving at a steady pace up the hill come to a sudden stop by running into the person in front of them, who is no longer moving.

After enduring this for about 20 minutes, when someone stopped dead in front of me to take another photo of themselves with their selfie stick, I began pretending that I didn't see them, and walked straight into the back of them. Sometimes there was an apology, but usually it was a surprised and annoyed look, until they realised that I had the same annoyed look on my face, as which point they inevitably stepped out of the way. Hopefully each person will consider their actions next time, and I'd like to think that I have in some small way contributed to the smooth pedestrian flow and public safety of Kyoto. But I doubt it.

The one saving grace of this ******n street is that there is a tiny, unassuming shop selling the most amazing snack on the planet, custard tiyaki. This desert pancake parcel thing is quite simply pancake batter filled with some kind of filling, usually red beans or sweet potato, but other fillings like vanilla or chocolate custard are also available. This place does red bean or vanilla custard, and their vanilla tiyaki, cooking only enough to ensure they sell within minutes of cooking them, and they are quite simply the best I've tried. I can't imagine a tiyaki getting better than this guy does them.

Reaching Kiyomizu temple, which we visited last week for the Blue Dragon festival, it was exactly as crowded as we expected it to be. The sakura petals, past their prime and starting to fall, were outnumbered 10:1 by the people trying to take photos of every one of those petals, so we didn't stay long.

Continuing North through the shops and long the walking trail bordering the eastern parklands, we soon realised by the time we got into the heart of the Gion district that we were, surprisingly not as enthusiastic to keep walking North, taking photos of cherry blossoms and enduring the crowds. I think around midday today was the tipping point for us where we all realised that we'd seen enough of the cherry blossoms.

This moment is actually a good thing. We came to Japan in this trip to tick an item off the bucket list which, honestly, I never expected to do. We wanted to experience Japan in sakura season. We wanted to see what drove the collective fascination of the entire country and inspired millions of domestic and international tourists, like ourselves, to travel to experience what is, at it's most basic, just some trees with flowers on them.
I completely understand why there is this obsession with the cherry blossom bloom, and the activity and festivities which go with it. After experiencing it from start, to essentially finish, I now understand why the Japanese look forward to this short space of time each year.

I have now done it, and have an appreciation for it myself. So now, as I find myself having no further desire right now to go out and find other cherry blossom trees to view, and photograph, I'm satisfied, rather than unhappy.

Since were now latitudinally level with the entry to the shopping district of central Kyoto, around Shijo Dori, we walked the 25 minutes West back to the centre of town to tick another item off the Japan to-do list.

My favourite restaurant in Japan: Katsukura.

Describing this meal doesn't do it justice. It's just a deep fried pork tenderloin cutlet, with rice, cabbage and miso soup on the side. Katsukura is however one of the most popular and famous pork tonkatsu places in Japan, originating in Kyoto, for good reason.

It was every bit as fantastic as I remember it. We entered the tiny nondescript shop in the shopping street of Shijo Teramachi. If you didn't know the shop was there, unless there was a queue you'd miss it.

We entered through the narrow hallway, across their quaint little wooden bridge inside the restaurant, and after a short wait, we were shown to our table. Coincidentally, the exact same table we were seated at 3 years ago when we visited.
We ordered 3 different "grades" of pork tenderloin tonkatsu, to test the difference in the grades and see if they were really worth the price. I ordered the "Berkshire" tenderloin tonkatsu, which is their ultimate cut (with the ultimate pricetag), and comes from a specially bread pig, and available in limited quantities each day at Katsukura. Veronica got the "Sangen" premium tenderloin tonkatsu, and Charlotte and Angela got the "regular" tenderloin tonkatsu. Isabelle got the kids meal of cutlet and prawn.

At Katsukura you get given a mortar and pestle with toasted sesame seeds to grind to make your own sauce, and this sauce is a big part of the reason why this store is so great. The tenderloins are perfectly cooked, the miso soup is make from red miso, and is pretty much the best miso soup I've ever had, but the sauce takes the tenderloin to another level.
So if you're reading this considering a visit to Katsukura, and wondering which tenderloin to get, I can't really help you. Sorry. The Berkshire was the tastiest, the most moist and tender, but I'm still debating whether it was worth the extra cost, because even the cheapest tenderloin cuts were so damn delicious. In hindsight I probably would just buy the standard tenderloin. It's still delicious.

Lunch was done, and crossed off the to-do list, so after wandering through the shops to the other end of the shopping street, we headed for the bus, with a goal to head North to Ginkakuji, the silver pavilion, and the nearby Philosophers Path. As, it would seem, was everyone else in Kyoto.

Sakura are still abundant, even though the petals are now falling like snow with every gust of wind, so the crowds are still milling around every cherry tree taking photos. I'll happily report that I'm sick of this now. We made our way towards Ginkakuji, fighting through the crowds along the admittedly very pretty canal, and when reaching the start of the Philosophers Path we realised that thousands of people were still heading up the hill towards the temple, so we aborted that plan, and turned down the Philosophers path to head South.

After 10 minutes of walking along a canal lined with Sakura that looks the same as every other cherry tree lined canal that we've looked at over the last couple of days, it reinforced that we've definitely got the Sakura bug out of our system. Even Charlotte, budding photographer (pardon the pun) and Sakura enthusiast who was initially taking photos of every damn flower she saw, declared that she'd had enough of the cherry blossoms.
After nearly 8 hours of walking, it was time to go in search of a bus and head back to our guesthouse.

Tomorrow, it's gonna rain, and apparently rain hard, and since it's a Saturday, and the last weekend of Sakura in Kyoto until 2018, we're going to give the touristy stuff a miss, and head to the shops for our allocated day of souvenir shopping.