#20260220

I did not wake up at 6am to go to Fushimi Inari temple. It was not destined to happen. It's fine, I have to leave stuff to do next time I come to Japan, right? Getting a bit more sleep was more important to me this time.

I did get up around 8:30 and re-pack my bags since today was my last day in Kyoto. Moving my train to later in the afternoon was a great choice! I checked out at 9:30 and left my bags in the hotel baggage storage before heading out for the morning. It was a very convenient little self-serve baggage machine that put your bags in a dumbwaiter-type metal box until you needed them back. Very fancy!

First stop was breakfast at a cafe I had tried to go to on my first day in Kyoto but was too full. A frog themed cafe called Kaeru! It was, like, tastefully frog themed. The cafe had a very laid back but serious-about-coffee vibe. When I walked in, one of the staff was sorting through beans before they were to be roasted, which was cool, since I didn't realize they roasted in-house. I initially was just expecting like a muffin or scone breakfast or something, but they had cheese toast on the menu so I got that and some banana bread. Their coffee menu was extensive - they had 3 or 4 blends, and then like 6-8 single origin beans you could choose from for a pour over. I went for a single origin from Brazil! The cheese toast was more like a pizza toast, it made for a tasty breakfast.

After breakfast I jumped on the train about 20mins north to Kyoto Botanical Gardens. I can never pass up a visit to some gardens! It is apparently "the oldest and most comprehensive public garden in Japan," according to the brochure I got at the entrance. The outdoors of the grounds were understandably still pretty dormant, with only a few plum and cherry blossoms, camellia, snowdrops, and daffodils blooming. There was a section that displayed around 40 different bonsai though, that was very cool! They also weren't blooming/leafy yet but there were plenty of pines to appreciate.

The main event (for me at least) was the conservatory, which was huge! I didn't get a photo of the outside but even that was cool to look at and appreciate the architecture, all glass panes in swooping curves. The botanical gardens I've spent the most time at are Allan Gardens in Toronto, which are lovely and a nice size, though not nearly as large as the Kyoto conservatory (which is apparently 4,700㎡). As I was walking through it room by room, I was surprised that it just kept going! The walking paths wound through the rooms in gentle slopes, taking you through a wide variety of different plants from all parts of the world - dry and wet tropics, alpine, highland, lowland, desert, even a small section with aquatic plants from different regions. It was for the most part very warm and lush, a welcome environment compared to the cold gray outdoors.

I took, of course, way too many photos of the flowers! So, some more photos are posted below. They were all so beautiful, and even still I only took pictures of a small fraction of them. All the information signs were exclusively in Japanese, but that's fine, I was just there to take in the sights and smells.

There were all sorts of flowers I had never seen before, keeping me interested at every turn. Including some really cool pompom-like ones! I wanted to dawdle but being on a bit of a time crunch I couldn't be quite as leisurely as I normally would.

They also had green birdflowers (pictured above) which I had heard of before and seen photos of, and this was my first time seeing them close up. They really do look like little tiny hummingbirds clustered around the stem!

Towards the end of the path, they had a very impressive collection of orchids - like, probably at least 40 varieties. I have never seen that many different kinds in one place! Some of them were extremely intricate.

All in all, it was a lovely way to spend the morning. I didn't get the chance to walk around the entire grounds of the Gardens, but absolutely would go back, maybe in the summer or later spring. There are gardens for cherry trees, maple trees, conifers, Japanese iris, waterlilies, lotus, peonies, hydrangea, rhododendron, and roses to name a few.

Between the Gardens and the hotel was a Traveler's Factory so I stopped off to pop in there, and get some of their stamps to add to my book! This was in addition to two stamps at the Gardens. One of the Travelers' stamps bled quite badly through the page which is unfortunate but I guess a risk I run.

Near the Traveler's was a bakery I really wanted to visit (having missed the location in Tokyo due to lack of time) called amam dacotan, since all of their pastries and food looks so good. Unfortunately, there was a line out the door (it being around noon by this point). Any other day I would be standing in that line regardless. I was very conscious of the time though, with my train leaving at 2:30 and still being a little far from the hotel and station. There went that lunch plan. Nishiki Market was not a far walk from the area and I was maybe going to go walk through there, but I'm pretty sure most of the food stalls would not be vegetarian, and I wasn't looking for much of a "wander around for the vibe" on my time crunch. I didn't want to spend time researching a different place for lunch in the area... so I went back to that lovely cafe from breakfast yesterday! It was close to the hotel that I needed to get back to for my bags anyway, and I knew I could find something I liked there. Maybe a bit silly to go two days in a row, but hey, it was really good.

The cafe was about a 20min walk or transit, so I opted for the transit, having just enough time to kill that it wouldn't stress me out. Today I elected for a walnut miso bagel with cream cheese, and also took a carrot cake bagel for later (that I ate upon arriving at the hotel in Nagoya - as it turns out, it had rum raisins inside!). Just as good as yesterday, as expected!

It was a nice quick meal and I was on my way to Kyoto station with my bags in good time. Good enough time that I had a bit of waiting around at the station but I'd rather wait there than anywhere else. I got a bit turned around with what section of the station I needed to be in, and SAW the station stamp past the ticket gates I explicitly did not need to go through :( shame! Can't get em all.

The train I had switched my reservation to was a slightly slower train, making more stops and taking 1hr instead of 30mins, not that I'm complaining. I had no other plans for the rest of the day except get to my hotel in Nagoya, and finish up my presentation for tomorrow. Because despite my (not quite best) efforts, I'm still working on it down to the wire. Classic academic move. I've heard it never gets better. At least giving conference presentations is old hat to me now, so I'm not stressed about it, I know it will go fine. I'm in literally the last presentation slot of the day tomorrow, a bit of a shame because I like getting it over with in the morning, but at least it's on the first day and I can fully enjoy the other two days of the conference!

Anyway, once I got to Nagoya, navigating the local trains was pretty simple and I found my hotel without issues (Hotel Rubura Ohzan). I wasn't sure how much they would speak English as it's not a very central area of the city (sort of midway between Nagoya station and Nagoya University, the campus the conference is at). I had no issues though!

I still have to decide what I'm going to do about dinner, since I appear to be in a bit of a dead zone with respect to vegetarian options... it seems like there might be some options at one of the hotel restaurants, but not a ton. That or I'll go seek out an Indian and Nepalese restaurant about 5 minutes away. I had some onigiri to get me through the afternoon at least!

In addition to finalizing my slides tonight, I'll also be making note of which talks I want to go to tomorrow. There are 3-4 concurrent sessions all 3 days, it's a big conference! The plenary talks are all going to be really interesting too. I don't quite know what I'll blog about during the conference days, since I know conferences tend to overload my brain and I really enjoy everything I listen to and learn in the moment but actually reporting back what I learned is never quite as successful. I made sure to get a dedicated notebook for the conference though, I always take notes during the sessions! I only recognize like, 3 names of other presenters (which includes one of the plenaries) so I am going to learn a lot of new things!! I'm so used to the Salish or [North American] Indigenous Languages conferences where I know at least 1/2 of the presenters. It's a totally new environment for me here!! I'm sure I'll have more to report on tomorrow than I might assume now. I am also looking forward to a few days of primarily using my brain over my body. I'm friggin tired.