The Travelist

After nearly two weeks of being in Japan and dining on some of the best foods around, I found a dish I just couldn't eat: okonomiyaki. It's a kind of grilled pancake consisting of various types of meat and doused in the namesake sauce (and apparently one of Japan's favorite foods). I even tried yaki udon (prepared the same way, but instead of a pancake, it's fried noodles) with shrimp, but nothing worked. Nino says it was some of the best he's had, but I was not having any of it.

I was beaten by first-class okonomiyaki in Kyoto. At least the view from the restaurant was nice. Oh, and the beer was frosty cold, which brings good marks in my book.

We didn't realize before we arrived exactly how much there was to see in Kyoto, which is why we decided to stay our last night here rather than heading back to Tokyo (PS, our hotel is pretty phat, so it made the decision easy). Since we left the big city, we've hit up the Yokohama Ramen Museum (it's everything it's cracked up to be and more), and visited Yokosuka, Nino's hometown (which is full of sparkling surprises in little red boxes). We've seen Kiomizudera and Kinkakuji temples, as well as the International Manga Museum, but stay tuned for more pics of a sampling of Kyoto's hundreds of shrines and temples. But for now, check out a few images of our first day in Kyoto when you read more.