My favourite way to see a city is to wander the streets and watch it. Armed with a camera I’ll quite happily dawdle around a city for hours.
The area of Kyoto I am currently in is quiet, suburban and made up of streets with quaint Japanese houses, it's a photography dream for me to be honest with you. So last night, armed with said camera and no plan other than to eventually get some ramen (the place was shut) I set off from the hostel. It took me about 20 minutes to cover a few hundred metres, looking at rooftops, the evening sky and the people of Kyoto going about their final business of the day. It’s thoroughly cathartic for me and feels like I am finally finding an outlet that works, something which this trip is giving to me in spadefuls of already.
As I stand watching people from a distance potter and tend to their gardens or cycle down the street I notice a chap standing off to my left watching, he wanders over as I lower my camera and insists I follow him to take pictures of his home, which he informs me is over 100 years old. As we round the corner he points and shows me his abode with great delight. I can tell the house is old and it does have a bit of character so I oblige and take a few snaps.
Before I know it he’s at the window calling for his wife to join us on the street, she is equally excited and insists he shows me the garden to take pictures of. So there I am stood in a traditional style Japanese living room taking pictures of what is to be fair a spectacular garden.
This is where things get knocked up a gear and I am presented a phone by the wife who has, what would turn out to be, her employee / translator on the phone asking if I would take the offer of dinner… after a moment of thought I decided that it would be a chance that might not come up all that often and I should take it…. So I did, accepting the dinner invitation for the next day at 15:00.
I hadn’t even considered that they might in fact want money for this *foreshadowing*, thankfully someone planted the seed that it might be worth asking before going in.
There I am today at 15:00 outside the front of this house, armed with a bunch of flowers and google translate preloaded with the ‘I wanted to check if I need to pay before entering your home?’… The flowers were gladly accepted and then I quickly presented my phone and awaited the response… ‘a little’ to which I quickly countered ‘I am travelling, I am afraid I don’t have anything’ and while bending the truth slightly it would’ve blown my budget by more than a country mile.
I was ushered in to meet the woman’s son who was cleaning up the prep for the meal as the translator arrived and introductions were made between everyone.
We proceeded to have a very very nice traditional Japanese meal and conversations covering a whole range of topics, from the royals to state schools neither of which I expected, but hey ho I don’t really know what I expected.
I can understate the generosity of my hosts and I incredibly thankful for the experience, but at the end of the day that definitely should not have been free.
Toddy
Current Locale - 🇯🇵
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