Many of you know, but in case you are one of the few who don’t, I am a chocolate milk aficionado. I drink chocolate milk like there’s no tomorrow and I relish in its aroma and taste as much as a wine drinker prefers wine. With that said, on our way back from dinner after touring Kyoto I finally found it. I’ve been on a quest since I got here and the moment had come when I found japanese chocolate milk! I will tell you too, the taste… was superb. It was creamy, rich and slightly grainy from the cocoa. Mmmmmm too good. In fact I went back later on to get another three only to be drunk in about three minutes. I will drink a ton on our last day in Japan that is for certain. Here’s what it looked like: I sure hope I can import some of this when we are back in the States. Return to top
Read More
Today, we had a full day tour of Kyoto and various historic sites around the city. We met with our group at the base of our hotel at 8:30 am and our first stop was at Nijo Castle. Nijo Castle was built in 1626 and was the home, when needed, of the Tokugawa Shogun. It was also used for the Kyoto Imperial Palace. The castle itself was immaculate and meticulously maintained. When entering the main building, which was huge, we had to remove our shoes and no photography of any kind was permitted. Inside, there were large rooms set off from each side of the corridors we walked down and within each of these rooms were giant painted murals. The murals themselves were all gold plated. What this is, when the light hits it right you can see that each panel, was plated in gold squares that were about 5 inches on a side. On top of the gold then a painting would be done, which often had trees painted, landscapes or animals and in some cases tigers. At the time, however, we were told no one in Japan had yet seen a tiger so their paintings were based off […]
Read More
