As Far As You Know

While exploring Kyoto today, I found the restaurant I had stumbled on in 1998, Musashi. This place is basically a horseshoe-shaped counter with a conveyer belt running around above, which ferries all manner of sushi, so it was easy to pick off just the things I wanted as they came by. And it's about as cheap as you can find for good sushi; the bill is tabulated by totaling the number of plates at the end of the meal; my lunch cost about 1,300 yen--around twelve bucks--and I had my fill of sushi.

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I visited Nara, one of Japan's earliest capitals, and site of Kasuga Taisha--a beautiful Shinto shrine--and Todai-ji, a Buddhist temple housing the Daibatsu (a very famous 53-feet-high bronze statue of Buddha). At the Shinto site, I had my fortune told via omikuji, based on the stick I drew out of a canister, only to find the slip of paper with my fortune on it was labeled "Misfortune." Figuring I'd have better luck with the Buddhists, I tried again later in the day at Todai-ji, but the second slip of paper was headlined (even more harshly) "Bad Luck." Good thing I don't put much stock in that sort of thing, or it might have ruined my day.