Socializing in Kyoto - Cafés

Scattered around Kyoto, and in every shape and form - the cafés, highly acclaimed in the foreigner's guidebooks as 'the heartbeat of Kyoto'. You can find them everywhere, even in the small streets you wouldn't expect to find anything special. Some of them are weird, some of them even weirder, but most has this European feel to them - a cross-breed of cheap French bistro and Italian trattoria, a place when you can sit with somebody for a brief chat, or just take your (nowadays e)book and relax for a bit. (I read it somewhere that the cafés played a special part in lives of 1970' Kyoto inteligentia, unfortunatelly I can't seem to find any interesting and reliable sources of information to recommend).

A coffee made with me in mind by F's friend in Italy :-)

I've been to two of them so far, rather due to the lack of money than any deliberate reluctance - an interesting European-style one with really tolerable coffee (oh, the little luxuries...) just a stone throw away from Saiin station, and a really quirky and bohemian one called Dal Poo (yes, I know...), somewhere not far away from Nijo castle. The second one even had a hidden art gallery on the top floor (what a pity some of my photos are trapped in my broken computer, I had such lovely pictures!). There also is more than quite a few around Kawaramachi and Teramachi area, including the Ninja Café I absolutely need to visit, and a café full of real cats, where for around 1500 yen incuding coffee you might play with the cats - what a pity I personally can't stand them, and most of my friends are allergic :-/ My aimiable German friend tells me of some recently-found post-punk one we have to go to and visit, we'll see...

I wish they were affordable. They are not, unless you're on some Fulbright or other JASSO scholarships and have additional money from the student loan company and your parents AND your own savings - then you can dine there every other day. A coffee is rougly 600-700 yen, and the food usually 1000yen up, but I have to admit it's usually really edible and made on the spot. It has this home-made quality feel to it, if you know what I mean.

The author of this Kyoto blog is very fond of cafés, and likes to explore the city looking for them - you can explore the city with him, while I return to my boring life with my boring book (this month: OL１０年やりました。or: 'I worked in the office for 10 years.' Sounds fascinating, I know. Found it in the リサイクル for just 50 yen).