Ritsumeikan School

In late February we went to Uji. Usually one goes to Uji to go to the famous Byodoin (on the ten yen coin), commune with the Uji chapters of The Tale of Genji, or drink green tea which is grown here. But we went to participate in a free ceramics making class with some other students in my program. Sam got to make a creation, and it will be fired and sent back to us. This took place at the Ritsumeikan middle and high school. Ritsumeikan is a prestigious private university in Kyoto, and like many such schools they have feeder private primary and secondary schools. There being nothing else around the area, we went to the school cafeteria for lunch, and it wasn't bad. Sam said he wanted to have his photo taken with some young women who turned out to be the baton twirling team. When we approached them he fled, but Maia was willing to have her photo with them, though she seems to be viewing them suspiciously.


Chris continued his tantanmen trials, Sam had udon as usual, and I had some fried chicken. Maia nibbled on all. It was not bad for the price.








Sam's creation was pretty impressive. No pedestrian bowls or cups for him! He got quite focused on this, and kept his lucky pumpkin hat on throughout.




While I assisted with the clay, Chris walked amongst the baton twirlers stretching with Maia until she fell asleep.



On the way back we looked for a coffee shop with cake, avoiding the Mister Donuts where Chris had a "honey glazed" donut that tasted more like butter rum and stale oil. Yuck. We walked a long ways down to a low-end mall that had a coffee shop (pretty yummy cake) within a supermarket. Their meat turned out to be very cheap compared to our central Kyoto area market, so we bought some beef and Chris made burgers for Sam. You can read about the elusive hamburger (not hambaagu) at Chris eats Kyoto One Delicious Year: Not Quite Like Home.