Kyoto: temples and knives

Kyoto is a beautiful city, rich with history, and that is quite visible. We took the thirty minute train from Osaka main station to Kyoto. The sky was gray, a contrast to the warm colored trees that covered the mountians in the distance. Fall came late for this region, I guess! 

We walked through a humble neighborhood south of the busy train station to the area of the Toji temple, a famous Japanese landmark. The grounds surrounding the temple were still vibrant with fall colors and the sun broke through the gray clouds dramatically illuminating the buildings.

We wandered around and finally made our way north a ways to a central area busy with rush-hour pedestrian traffic. We found an area of town called Nishiki, with a food market and lots of restaurants. What a sight! It was busy and vendors were yelling out to lure customers in. 

Eventually we found what we were looking for. Aritsugu, the famous knife shop that Josh found after doing weeks of research. When we first decided to move to Korea we were, of course, filled with so much excitement, and often talked about some of the things we looked forward to most. A trip to Japan was high on that list, and most of all we wanted to buy a culinary knife in Kyoto, where they are famous for making quality, handmade kitchen tools. We found this busy store, famous for making their knives by hand there at the little shop. It was not easy at first to get help, for they were busy, and we clearly don't look Japanese. The language barrier was tough at first, but Josh had done his research and knew enough to get us to the the kind of knifes that we were seeking. A sweet young lady finally helped us out, and with her sweet english skills we were able to narrow our selection down, finally deciding on a carbon steel knife with beautiful engravings and a beautiful handle. They offered free engraving on the opposite side with whatever we chose... the knife is now named Ryuk.