27th nov- samurai bar and abode in Kyoto 15th nov - 17th november 2014
the place we stayed in kyoto was an old house town house converted into a bar on the ground floor. the living quarters were upstairs. we stayed in a room which has access to another smaller room which contained the washing machine. the doors were japanese sliding doors with a hook for a door locking system. it has about 8 tatami mats and we were given futons mattresses to sleep on. the only shower available was the one located downstairs. because of the bar, we cannot get to it from 5pm until 7am the next morning. on the 1st floor there was a kitchen tap and a really tiny toilet. on the 1st floor apart from our rooms, there were other two rooms, one was a bedroom and another seemed to be somewhat a living room/seating area with views of the street. musashi perched on the ledge in the mornings. the stairs were narrow and high. the floors were all wood, and when musashi the cat came bounding up the stairs or walking about, we can hear him. musashi is the owner's cat who can come and go as he pleases into rooms. he is a big one, not really fat, but with quite a solid body. he comes when called or when we don't call; it is his house anyway and we were just guests. he can go out, it seems, but with monitoring i guess. in the mornings we were there he likes to get into the washing machine room and tries to peel of sheets of tape his owner had taped on the window, my guess is to prevent him from going out of it! i didn't even open the window in that room(there were openable ones that were mushashi was unable to open because it has a proper catch). i wished i had. i bet it opened into a garden on the ground floor (which seemed to be sequestered). mr tomo, the owner, understands our english but speaks back to us haltingly and carefully. his housemate speaks like english is natural to him. in the bar we had yuzu (something like lemon) and black sesame flavored ice cream. it was good.