Something that is Japan Dake (only) is character themed cafes. There is a larger variety of character cafes, such as: Sailor Moon, One Piece, Alice in Wonderland, Gudetama...ect.
Gudetama is a character from the Sanrio company...and he is a lazy egg. He is the definition of someone who has no motivation to do absolutely anything and just melts onto the floor. Gudetama's name comes from a play on words of gude gude ( no energy or strength ) and tamago (egg). Hence, lazy egg.
In Shijo Kawaramachi there is currently a Gudetama themed cafe thanks to the collaboration with Maccha House.
I went to the adorable cafe with my friend Chelsea ( Gaijin in Japan ) and we went during not "lunch time" time and we waited in line for over an hour! Once we finally made into the shop we paid for the meal we wanted ( just like any cafe) and headed upstairs to take a seat.
The cafe is tiny, it had a capacity of about 20 people max, but there were usually 8-10 at a time. The cafe was decked out with Gudetama's face plastered over...pretty much everything. The lanterns, the walls, the food, the tables.
I ordered an ice matcha latte and a baked chicken and egg bowl (it had rice underneath). The latte was amazing, the whipped cream was the thickest and smoothest whipped cream I have ever had in my life! And the matcha drizzle? I cried from happiness. Also the Gudetama theme in this drink was the marshmallow that was sporting Gudetama's butt!
The meal itself was very mediocre, but I was hungry during that time that it tasted like heaven had just dropped the most delicious eggs and chicken in the world into my bowl. When in reality it was just a bowl of rice with chicken and scrambled egg...that costed be about 11 USD. Pretty pricey if you ask me.
Chelsea and I then split a matcha partfait which had matcha (obviously) and various traditional Kyoto sweets, like ankan ( sweet red beans ), green tea ice cream, and green tea jellys.
The cafe is open till May 8th! So if you are in Kyoto during before then make sure to stop by the Gudetama x Maccha House in order to experience some Gudetama cuteness, even if it is to just drink a latter with a friend~
I arrived to my room at around 3am last night and did not officially go to sleep till 4am. Saying that I slept in till 9:30 and lazied around in my room till 11. In that hour and a half I dozed off, spaced out, showered, semi-cleaned, talked to my parents and ate strawberry cream oatmeal (hooray for not toast!). Now that I live next door to Riley, I can knock on the wall to wake him up rather than sending 10 text messages. (I did not knock on the wall, but I was tempted to).
At around 11:30, Riley, Sumire and I headed out to Genkoan Temple (or so we thought). I thought the temple was toward the University. (I was wrong). Anyways, before we figured out that I was wrong we stopped to have lunch in some pasta place. I had seafood creme pasta and it was pretty okay, the sauce was a bit weird and I honestly did not know how I felt about it, but the seafood portion was great.
After lunch, we attempted to find Genkoan Temple and realised that I had my directions completely wrong. So we got on a bus that at the time we thought would take us to right place (it obviously did not). Sumire by then was tired and thirsty so we entered a convenience to get something to drink. I got a cherry juice and it was fantastic!
Like I said, Sumire was tired, so she got a taxi and then we headed off (finally after an hour) to Genkoan Temple. Except that when we got to the temple the taxi driver decided to get off and become our tour guide. Why...I still don't understand why....Anyways, yes a random japanese taxi driver decided to become our tour guide and talk about all the plants, stones, windows, floors and stuff in the temple. It was pretty cool, but all three of us were still very blown away and confused as to why he was doing this.
I am grateful that this happened to us, because if not we would have missed a lot of the beauties the temple had to offer. For example. we would have never known that the painted screen doors in the temple were the real deal, not refurbished stuff that most temples have. The Taxi Man also pointed to us a rock turtle in the Genkoan garden that when it rains the area surrounding it fills up and it looks like the turtle is swimming in a pound.
Genkoan temple is famous for two things (or at least for me). First it is has two windows in its main hall. One is round and the other is square. The Window of Realization is the round, implying Zen maturity, completeness and enlightenment. The Window of Delusion is the square one, implying confusion, ignorance, and immaturity, or the life of human suffering.
Then there is ceiling in the main hall that is famous for being its crimson color. The wood for it was brought from Hideyoshi's Momoyama Castle in Fushimi and had been the floor, stained with the blood of the warriors who died in a bloody battle. The warriors committed honorable suicide inside the building rather than getting captured and killed by the enemy, and their bodies stayed there for several months that it stained the wood.
Bloody foot print from the past
Bloody body print from the past
It was overall a really cool temple, and having a tour guide (that I could semi-understand) made it even better, because all I really knew about the temple was the windows and the bloody foot print. The Taxi Man pointed out every bloody print on the ceiling, some that I would have completely missed.
After we were done with Genkoan Taxi Man took us to another temple (one I never heard of before), and once again...became a tour guide. He took us to Imamiya, and from what I understood from his speeches it is mostly dedicate to women and it is mostly run by women, but the head priest is a man.
Now something that began happening around this time is that Taxi Man started having uncontrollable gas. And he was so open and cool about it...Riley, Sumire and I were dying of laughter, and trying very hard to contain it. We were just so amused by the farting old taxi tour guide man. He was so sweet. Afterwards he took us to eat the temple's specialized mochi which is soaked in white miso soup. They were so sweet delicious, it was amazing, I was a bit worried since I have had such a on and off experiences with mochi. And we had cold creme tea to accompany our white miso mochi.
Next Taxi Man took us to Ginkakujin (The Silver Pavilion), but this time he did not continue us with us. He dropped us off near the pavilion and only charged us half of what the taxi ride would have actually cost us. Japanese people are so humble and kind. We need more people like the Taxi Man in the world.
In Ginkakuji we strolled around the path, giggling about our experience with the taxi man (and me taking pictures and vlogging on the side). We were acting like children to be honest. Ginkakuji is exactly like Kinkakujin but less gold, and A LOT less people strolling around, which was amazing. I feel the less people there are in a temple the more you actually enjoy it.
Once we finished exploring Ginkakuji we set forth to go home, but the bus we needed got cancelled for the day, (we still don't know why) so we took the bus that took us all the way to Kyoto Station and from there we took the correct bus to the accommodations. I took a 10 minute power nap before heading to Teremachi to start by souvenir shopping for everyone back home and trying to figure out how to pack everything.
For dinner I had baseball theme fruit milk, reheated pasta and pineapple ice cream.
Tomorrow, hopefully, will be just as action packed.
I overslept today. I slept in for about 20 minutes ( I know it's not a lot but my mornings have routine ). I must have hit okay on the alarm rather than snooze when it first rang at 7:20. Anyways, my morning routine was pretty much the same but at faster tempo. Make breakfast, get ready, chat with my folks. And as always I had toast and egg for breakfast ( my roommate complained about having to eat the same thing almost everyday, and I was about to tell them off, because I do ALL the cooking, washing and used to buy all the groceries). I usually change how I make my eggs or what spreads I put on my toast to spice it up a bit, so it is not all that bad.
Class came and went like it usually does. We learned some new vocabulary words (that I have already forgotten) and we start the new grammar tomorrow. We also have a quiz on Thursday and the project is due on Wednesday. I'm a bit angry about a project, they expect us to write a college style report in Japanese when our Japanese level is below fluent.
Like always I forgot to take a picture of my lunch, but I had chicken, rice and red sweet bell peppers. Also, during lunch I interviewed Jun for the project I have for Komura's class. I had fun because I kept asking him questions in different pitch voices. I made him laugh quite a bit. Something I did take a picture of was my snacks! I had pudding (flan) tart and a matcha swirl bread. They were both super yummy (especially the tart).
After lunch we all set fourth and walked all the way to Taizo-in Temple. In this place I learnt that Zen meditation is very painful and I would not recommend it to any one. We had to sit in a really weird position were both our feet had to be on top of each leg, it was painful. We had maintain that position with perfect posture for twenty-minutes...longest twenty-minutes ever. Also, if we lost concentration (because we couldn't close our eyes) we would smacked by the stick. Two people got smacked but I don't know who it was, and I couldn't turn to see cause it would like I lost my "concentration". Once the dreadful meditation lesson was over, the priest gave us a tour around his temple. The gardens were beautiful.
Taizo-in is well know for it's story about catfish and the whole idea of catching catfish with a bottle or gourd...I didn't quite get it either.
Once the excursion was over I returned to the accommodations with Franz so we could finish our group project. It took us about one or two hours to finish, but it was mostly because we would get off topic really easily. Oh! and Franz bought shrimp flavoured potato chips! It tasted okay, not bad but not good either.
When we finished our project Franz and I went to a Mexican restaurant up Sanjo-dori. I know...I know...why did I eat Mexican food in Japan? I don't know, I wanted to see if it was any good (it wasn't). Especially since Japan has such great french desserts and Italian meals.
After the disappointing Mexican meal we crossed the street and enter a cute little French bakery where I ate the most delicous dessert ever. I don't even know what I ate, but it was fruity with raspberries moose and jelly, thin layer of sponge cake circuling the border, semi-thick/hard chocolate moose (maybe) and thing layers on white chocolate....and it had macaroon as decoration! I am so returning to that bakery. It felt like a fancy party in my mouth.
When we returned to the accommadations once again, I wrote the corrections on my report and then cooked the bento for tomorrow's lunch. I made Curry....the hispanic version...meaning I used the curry sauce as a seasoning for the minced meat that I made...
Tomorrow I get to go to a tea ceremony class! I am pretty excited!
Simply a girl who loves tea, blogs about her ever exciting life and wants to make her dreams come true.
