JAPAN, DAY NINE

Yoga and shopping

I did my last yoga practice with my step mum this morning, she plans to find a studio and continue her practice which is lovely. I’ve researched the studios in Kyoto and enthusiasm is growing for yoga so there are a lot on interesting things popping up. I passed by Nadi studio in Kitayama one evening, it was closed but it looks like they have a good time table and nice yoga breakfast events.

For the afternoon I did some panic buying, we’re going to Nara tomorrow so todays the day for buying gifts and Japanese food supples to use back home. There are all sorts of bits worth picking up like Matcha power, nice Miso, Dashi (Japanese soup stock), weird snacks and crackers — I love it all. These things aren’t that hard to get your hands on in London but its nice to buy it here.

It’s our last dinner in Kyoto together so we go to a traditional old Sukiyaki beef place which has been serving up the Japanese dish since forever. Its a beef based dish which you cook yourself on a burner in the middle of the table. The place looks like its not had a revamp since the day it opened and like many restaurants we remove our shoes at the door and then sit ourselves on the tatami (bamboo matt) floor.

It reminds me a bit of an 80s community centre in England, the kind of place you’d go for Brownies or Girlguides, the gas pipe for the burner runs between my aunty and I watch as the table next to us light their cigarettes, it’s a wonder the place has never burnt down. We fire up the burners and my step mum talks us through the order in which we tackle the tray of ingredients — onion, spring onion, cabbage, noodles, sugar, beef (sliced similarly to carpaccio) soy sauce, marin and tofu.

Placing them in the pan they start to sizzle whilst you blanket the thinly sliced beef ontop creating a lid to steams the vegetables. You then sprinkle over the sugar and stir it together to make a teriyaki like sauce. The highlight is cracking a raw egg into a dish and dipping your next bite into the raw egg before eating.

Served with rice and beer, everyone is happy.