Fresh smell of rain
I don’t know how to describe it, but after the deluge of rain the air smells re-energized. It doesn’t have the same sensation or scent as the the time after a heavy rainfall in New York. To me it reminds me of good memories, earth, the Philippines, my friends, family, a refreshing feeling. It might be because of all the greenery and the smell the trees, grass, and others give off after being rained upon.
Every morning I wake up to the sounds of the cicadas from outside the balcony of my apartment. Every morning around 6:30 they start. I can’t go back to sleep, but I don’t mind because I rarely hear them in New York. There was supposed to be an invasion of the cicadas that emerge only every 17 years in the eastern states of the U.S., but, sadly, I didn’t experience it nor did I hear from people I know complaining about the noise. I just hope that it wasn’t because of the increasingly hot weather that they couldn’t survive burrowing out of the ground. They’re such beautiful creatures.
Over the kamogawa river
Anyway, this location is one of my favorite spots. I can just stand there to enjoy the view for hours. There are restaurants nearby that have seating that overlooks the river. It must look beautiful at night. Also nearby should be tokucho, a restaurant known for their oden. I need to plan an evening dinner there.
Today, I finally ate eel. I went to Matsuno, a restaurant specializing in eel. The menu consists of eel cooked in different ways and in different sizes. I wish I had taken a picture of the menu, but the prices were pretty expensive and there were funny English sizes. There was a medium, a larger medium, and then large. For lunch they didn’t have much available. I’m assuming the other half of the menu becomes available towards dinnertime. 
The eel may look simple, but the quality is seems high. The eel is cooked through and isn’t slathered in an eel sauce that makes the customer taste only the sauce and nothing of the eel. It is slightly charred on the skin and edges to bring out the taste of the eel and its fat. Because it is not drenched in sauce, but is rather balanced, you can taste the eel itself. Oh, the tenderness of the meat and the rice that goes with it was wonderful.
I definitely recommend eating here once. It’s even better when it’s on the day of the ox, the doyo no ushi no hi. It is believed that the eel gives you stamina, especially in the hot, humid weather of Kyoto, it’ll help you combat it. I shall have to visit again when it’s the day of the ox unless it already passed.
Ah, that eel size is the larger medium. They serve hot green tea unless you request for chilled. It comes with a small side dish of tsukemono, pickled vegetables that Kyoto is famous for. The price for this was about $49. Yes, pretty expensive.
