Day 10 - Friday November 3, 2017 - Culture Day
Culture Day
Posted on Friday November 3, 2017
Today is ‘Culture Day’, a public holiday. For us, more of a rest day with a certain amount of pottering about.
We’ve been having trouble with the wi-fi in the apartment since we got here – essentially it doesn’t work or rather it’s so slow as to be unusable. We pointed this out to the landlady who said they’d bring us another mobile wi-fi unit. They did – but that was several hours later at 10.30 at night, by which time we were in bed and asleep. I couldn’t make it out of bed fast enough and, after stumbling around in the dark trying to put some clothes on, by the time I made it to the door, they had left it in a little bag hanging from the outside door handle.
That unit didn’t work any better though that initially proved to be ‘operator error’. You have to turn it on (duh) and that requires you to keep pressing the button for several seconds before anything happens. I finally figured that out but again it was so slow as to be useless. Both units display a data amount which has been slowly incrementing – the original unit was at 18+ gb when we arrived and the replacement was at 36+ gb. Presumably these numbers are the amount of data downloaded since it was last reset. In my emails to the landlady I tried to explain that I assumed there was some daily/weekly/monthly download limit and, once that was exceeded, performance was throttled. That didn’t elicit anything in the way of a helpful response. All of a sudden, the original unit was showing 4mb, in place of the previous 18+ gb – at which point I realised it was November 1 and the (unknown) monthly limit must have reset. The wi-fi worked fine for half a day, at which point it throttled again. It’s back up to 5+ gb as, as soon as our phones and iPads had a good wireless connection, they promptly uploaded/downloaded all the photos and downloaded various app updates that they hadn’t been able to do for the previous few days. We’ve obviously blown through whatever data limit there is and it’s been throttled agan. As we have no idea what the daily/weekly/monthly data limit is, I emailed the landlady to say it wasn’t working again but that we would just manage without. We have Japanese data sims in our iPads (but not in our phones) so at least have connectivity that way. We’re now resorting to stops at Starbucks to be able to use their wifi to upload/download what we need.
After breakfast in the apartment, we headed down to Starbucks for coffee but, more particularly, to use their wi-fi. Both our iPads wanted to download iOS updates so sitting in Starbucks, slowly drinking our coffee as the downloads progressed, seemed the way to go. We then caught the subway a couple of stops up, to walk to one of the washi (Japanese paper) stores that A-M wanted to visit. We knew where it was as we went there last time we were here. However, as today is a public holiday, they had obviously decided to close. We walked on, heading for the Nishiki Market, passing a Starbucks on the way. Ah, time for coffee …. or more particularly, time to finish some downloads. That done, we walked all the way through the Market and up Terimachi-dori to where it ends. Turn right and …. it’s here somewhere… On our last visit here, we finally managed (after failing on two previous visits) to find a needle store that A-M wanted to visit. It’s down a very narrow alley between a palm reader and some other store. You’re in a pretty nondescript shopping arcade but walk down the narrow alley and you’ll suddenly find yourself in an exquisite little courtyard garden, with the needle shop at the back.
Feeling pleased that we’d managed to remember where the needle shop was (supposedly they’ve been making them for 400 years, so if you’re in need of serious sewing needles, it’s the place to go) we debated whether to carry on to the other washi shop, a few blocks north, behind Kyoto City Hall. Having come this far, we figured we might as well even though the other store had been closed. It’s a public holiday, though most of the shops appeared to be open, so what the Japanese actually do on Culture Day isn’t clear – perhaps it’s a day to avoid anything with cultural connotations if you want to avoid the crowds.
When we got there, the shop was open so our efforts were not in vain. A-M bought a few items which they wrapped for her. As before, watching the lady wrap them was amazing – I wish I could learn to wrap presents like that.
We headed back to the subway station near City Hall and from there took the subway back down to the Station. We went up to the 10th floor, intending to go to one of the ramen places but they were all very busy, with long lines so we went across and up to the 11th floor, where there are a number of (slightly more upmarket) restaurants. One in particular we’ve been to several times before so we got in line there. Not too much of a wait and lunch was excellent – vegetable tempura and rice with soba noodles in a broth and a we-think-it-was-hazelnut-pudding for dessert. The tempura was fresh, crunchy and very light – just an excellent lunch.
After lunch we headed back to the apartment, by which time it was 2.30. Time for a siesta … though I suspect that may be it for the day as far as any further outside activity is concerned.