Today, we head to Uji in Kyoto
We start our day with a drink at a small lakefront cafe
The owners of this cafe were wonderful hosts, and even played us a couple of songs on his harmonica.
After our morning caffeine, we started our day! Our first stop was a shrine, followed by an observatory. Unknown to Wincy (she says), this involved a decent uphill hike. It was quite a bit of exercise for the morning, but we made it!
After hiking back down, we found a place for some lunch. Although it was likely a tourist trap (because everything was matcha), we decided to try anyways. For lunch we started with match takoyaki, and followed with a matcha beer, matcha gyoza, and matcha ramen. That definitely sounds like a matcha tourist trap! 😝
A visit to Uji is not complete without buying some green tea, so that's what we did after lunch. As we walked down the street, we found a place that was roasting their tea (Hojicha) on the streetside.
It wasn't until we finished paying for our Hojicha, that we realized they were also grinding their own matcha.
We decided to take a walk first, but we eventually came back to buy more tea from this vendor.
After buying tea, we found a street of Wisteria. Looking at Wisteria during the day however, also comes with bees. Wincy wasn't fond of this, and so she walked along side after taking a few pictures.
Last stop for us in Uji, was Nakamura Tokichi. It was tough, but we managed to get a pretty good table here, on the second floor. It wasn't a window seat, but it was good enough. Wincy decided to splurge, and got 2 drinks. This was just under $50 CAD in drinks 😛
Tonight for dinner, we had a reservation at Tempura Amatsuki for their tempura Omekase. When we arrived, we were the first party. We were oddly seated in the middle of the table top bar. Unknown to us at the time, this was the "best" seat in the house, as it was directly in front of the chef!
Dinner was fantastic! My personal favourite though, had to be the tempura soft boiled egg on rice! It was the final dish to be served, but it really hit the spot!
After finishing dinner, we went to the Donki on Dotomburi for a walk. Still so many people!
