Today....was awesome, and then you-know-what happened: RAIN. Our nemesis. Let's start from the beginning.
First on the agenda was roketsu, or ink-dying- in the boondocks of Kyoto (it took over an hour by bus). We had a private session and started off the class by picking out designs and the fabric we want to use. We used melted wax to trace the designs onto the fabric using a light screen- we went over it again, and again, and again (see picture of the artist telling Dave where he missed).
After that, the fabric was put into an indigo bath for about 10 minutes where the dye would penetrate into the fabric where there wasn't wax, leaving the design yellow where the wax was.
Rinsed that off with just water, and then boiled the bag and canvas sheet we made, to get the wax off- and the yellow became white! Like magic! The cute grandma (obviously the mother of the owner) came to help Dave iron his (she obviously didn't know he was trained to iron in the Navy), and we were done.
Obviously, the owner offered us a job at the studio, but we politely declined.
Lunch was needed, and luckily Tsana reserved lunch at a kobe steak house. We shared a single lunch which cost a pretty penny and included 150grams of kobe steak, for Dave, and a half a lobster tail, for Tsana. It was prepared teppanyaki style, which is where you are seated at the flat top grill and chef cooks it right in front of you. The lobster was mixed with spices and delightful while Dave commented that the Kobe "melted in his mouth" (which Tsana thinks is gross) and you can see his reaction here.
After lunch we walked through Nishiki market (open this time! Note the baby squid, below) and caught a long bus ride the the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove.
About 40 minutes into the bus ride - you guessed it - it started to pour. We still had over 20 minutes to go and hoped if we rode it out, it would pass when we got there. Alas, we got off the bus, ran into a coffee shop (where Dave got "coffee milk" which is apparently milk and sugar with a hint of coffee), and waited it out. Except it didn't work. The rain won. Again. We left (see Tsana's reaction below).
Something non-Japanese was on the docket for tonight and how much more different can you get than Italian! We expected a large Italian man, on loan from the North End, to greet us, but it was the opposite - some slender Japanese people. It was as good as you can imagine Italian food in Japan gets.
Tomorrow: Shrine running, (maybe) the bamboo forest try #2, and travel to Hiroshima.