Our last day in Kyoto. So many temples to see and the sad realization that I've hardly scratched the surface of what I wanted to do here. Does this mean another trip soon? I don't think so. I've been to Japan so many times and I really want to visit other places. It'll be a long time before I visit again, I think.

We have accumulated too much stuff. So, this morning started with a long trip to the post office with a big bag of books and other items to ship. We sent the books by surface; some other items, such as the sembei, we sent by EMS, possibly the best express mail service on the planet. Communicating what we needed was, surprisingly, a huge ordeal. You'd think that foreign travelers shipping lots of items would be a familiar occurrence for postal staff, but we had a lot of difficulty figuring out the process and no one really helped us along. We managed to get it all sorted out, but it took longer than I thought it would. Postage was expensive, but it was worth it to be able to ditch that weight for the return trip.

I really wanted Andrew to visit the the matcha bar at Tsuruya Yoshinobu, so we made that our next stop. We took the subway up and walked one large city block to the corner of Imadagawa and Horikawa. Tsuruya Yoshinobu is the fancy sweet shop, sweet makers for the emperor and still for the Urasenke family. The main store is in Kyoto, including the matcha bar, with outlets in Takashimaya department store. I think I prefer the modest sweet shops you find because someone told you it is their favorite or that you find because you stumble upon it. You never know what delicious morsel and friendly face you'll find there. Yoshinobu is a busy place and the sweets in the shop were the same sweets they sold last year. Staff are many and rushed, and the store itself is grand and glitzy. Of course, custom sweets can be ordered, and that is probably the source of the bulk of their business and of their reputation.

Upstairs, we ordered the matcha and were seated at the bar. I thought Andrew might find it a bit disappointing because, honestly, this time I thought it a bit of a let down. But he was delighted to watch the chef make the sweet at the bar in front of us and the sweet he selected (one of two that must be the same year round) was a type he had never had before. It is neat to watch the man (the same man from last year) shape this perfectly complicated little morsel from nothing but his hands and a simple bamboo shaping tool. He makes it look so easy that you forget that it actually is very difficult to do. I'm glad Andrew enjoyed it.

There were temples to see that I didn't see last year. Koto-in, for one, with its famous bamboo grove that shelters some dazzling little maples. Koto-in has a really old tea room that I hadn't seen. I was glad for Andrew to see it too because really old tea rooms are a rare thing that can look like nothing to someone who doesn't know about them. It was fun for me to see another old tea room and to contemplate the architectural and aesthetic choices made long ago and to be able to point out and explain the different qualities for Andrew.

This is temple-seeing season in Kyoto, and the temple was packed to the rafters with sock-clad people. A floatilla of shoes extended out onto the stone walkway leading up to the main doorway. People walked in funny little dances to travel the distance from where they had left their shoes to the first step of the house.

From there we walked north and east a bit to Nachiya, a lacquerware maker. The little shop and house is tucked away in a residential neighborhood behind Daitokuji. The shop is small and the lacquerware exquisite. They still make the pieces by hand and the craftsmen they employ know each step of the work to create the whole piece. Nothing is outsourced. Hashi are good, inexpensive gifts. But simple trays and bowls easily become $50 a piece. Natsume can be close to $1000 depending on the materials. I went there this year to revisit a tray I'd wanted to buy but didn't and that I had thought about all year. This year, I bought it.

On the return trip we entered Daitokuji and strolled the strangely alpine paths to Daisen-in to see the rock garden there and to have another bowl of tea. I've been told by tea people that the Daisen-in tea house is the location where Rikyu arranged a single flower on-the-fly, but I can't find that documented anywhere. The story (as well as I can remember) is that Hideyoshi brought a single flower to Rikyu as a challenge to the master to see how he could possibly arrange it. Rikyu took took the flower out to the boat shaped rock in that now-famous garden, removed the stem from the flower and floated the blossom in a bowl of water. Something like that.

With the day approaching dusk, I dragged Andrew down through the rest of Daitokuji to the bus stop where we caught a bus for Kinkaku-ji, this famous, showy temple I had yet to see in three visits to Kyoto. This was my last chance. Crowds were flowing from the gate when we departed the bus and I worried we would be too late (temples close at dusk). We hurried and paid, and once inside I felt like we could relax. The grounds were dark under tree cover, and they teemed with tourists. We found ourselves among at least a busload of tourists from Singapore, all of whom were speaking English, as we rounded a bend to the lighted expanse of the pond and the brilliant gold-leafed pavilion reflecting all available light back to us. The flow of people became paralyzed as every single person attempted picture after a picture in a futile attempt to record the unrecordable effect of seeing that magnificent thing with your own human eyes. After awhile, you give up or the batteries give out and you start to creep on, stopping every so often to let yourself be stunned at the sheen given by some new angle. It was almost dark by the time we turned from the pavilion to follow the path back into the forest. We wondered what the pavilion must look like at noon on a sunny day. Blinding?

The temple had closed by the time we exited. Darkness of our last day in Kyoto means no more temple-going for a long, long time. We sat at a cluster of vending machines at the end of the approach to the temple and drank hot chocolates. We plotted our next step. Where do you find dinner on a weekend in a town full to capacity with tourists? We were tired and hungry. We decided to catch the bus to the ryokan then head back out. It was only 5:00 p.m.

Queues at the bus stops extended the length of the block. Impatient, we decided to walk to the next stop to escape the crowds. But a bus came that we could take to the ryokan and we were able to squeeze on. Most other people waiting were waiting for another bus, it turned out. Our bus was still packed chest to ass, and at each stop you could hear the groan of a few people entering and exiting. We rode packed tight until our stop.

I had an idea to try to eat at a family restaurant I'd visited last year that is near the Imperial Palace and the Marutamachi area. We warmed up a bit at the ryokan and then walked back out for the subway station and two clicks south to Marutomachi station. I vaguely remembered where the restaurant was, but I had to do a bit of navigation by feel. On the way, we passed a shrine dedicated to pigs, which tickled us. We found the restaurant, Kurikuma, just around the corner and part way down the block from there. To my delight, they were open and it was exactly as I'd remembered. It's the kind of place you'd want in your neighborhood: Owned and run by a family that has a lot of pride in what they offer—and they offer an astonishing variety of dishes, all of which are hearty and comforting. Mom and dad ran the kitchen and this time a daughter (instead of a son) assisted. They worked like mad, mulititasking the cooking of wildly different dishes, everything from an ice cream parfait to grilled eel to preparing soba. We ordered a lot, it all looked so good: Fried potatoes, wheat gluten with plum sauce, curry soba, grilled eel over rice, sake, coffee, and two crazy ice cream parfaits that had matcha and vanilla ice cream, mochi balls, and whipped cream atop a bed of corn flakes. It was pretty awesome.