Kyoto temples, seating, and misunderstandings

Went to see Ginkakuju temple. The temple itself is nothing impressive, but the area around it is just breathtakingly gorgeous. Amazing gardens, fountains, landscaped bushes, all in the middle of a pine forest. They really keep it up too. The closest thing to those who haven't been to Japan would be the garden from the last scene from Kill Bill Volume 1, where Uma Thurman chops off Lucy Liu's head.

The quality of the restaurants here is top-notch. The service is great, the food comes VERY quickly, and the quality of the food in an _average_ (low-class / fast food) restaurant is on par with the BEST Japanese restaurants in America.
The prices are also very reasonable. $3-4 for a meal that would cost $10-15 in America.
Mmm imagine living like this every day.

Usually restaurants have two types of seating, the standard chairs, and the elevated floors for people who like to sit in the lotus position. The Japanese people prefer it about fifty-fifty either way. The Europeans naturally gravitate towards the chairs.

---------------

- Black tea please
- Badak
- Black tea
- Hot ice?
- Hot
- Hot dog
- Hot tea
- Hot dog tea
- No, black tea
- Badak ti
- (confused face)
- (pointing to color) black
- Ohhh badak, hmm (confused face)
- forget it - just green tea
- gadin ti, hot dog?
- hot green tea
- (writes on paper) HGT
- OK