Western food Eastern style

a field of graves
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Here at the Tour club - my hostel they have a nice little suggestion sheet for finding the basic needs of the tourist.  One was a breakfast place called Kontori.  I ate there this am.  What was on the menu was an interesting version of the basic American breakfast.  This version contained scrambled eggs, toast,  1sausage, 1 slice ham, salad with ranch dressing and miso soup, coffee or tea.

With determination I headed out with a complete itinerary which fell apart the minute I got to the train station and found the bus I wanted would be a half hour so I hit another direction.  Stopping first at Toji which is another UNESCO site.  This one had an overpriced room of paintings and a very dark pagoda.  Somewhat less awe inspiring I moved on to Kyomizu-Deraji (ji btw means temple) This place does not disappoint.  you walk upwards passing through a cemetary of large proportions up a wide stairs to this orange painted beauty of an entryway and pagoda.  A very large main building which as you walk around you realize hangs over a ravine.  The hills are in the background and the city lies below you.  Just plain pretty.  There is some international plan to elect a new 7 wonders of the new world.  This temple is in the running.  I took a ton of pics here.

The lovely Kiyomizu-Dera Ji
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I decided to grab an early lunch.  I seem to be averaging about 9 bucks a meal.  The range in most of the places with pictures outside is 8 to 15 bucks.  Well I made a mistake because I truly could not make out what the picture was representing and ordered the hamburger with onion rings.  How this came was a small patty covered in teriyaki sauce and tempura rings with rice, a bowl of udon and some form of macaroni - not so bad really.

I had battery trouble today.  I am admitting now I should have brought the damn charger.  Duh.  Anyway the cheapo batteries - 4 for 2 bucks gave my camera really bad gas.  I freaked me out so I went out and bought an expensive charger tonight.  I hit alot of other places but really you must be tired of hearing about temples.  Lets talk about the shopping mall under the bus station.  Lots of cheap eats.  I dined at a place that reminded me of Toshis's in Eugene.  The miso ramen tasted almost exactly like his.  Only here they served fried rice on the side.

Paintings in the Toji complex
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One last observation.  I went to a record store.  My favorite new band name: bump of chicken.