Osaka 大阪, Japan Trip (Day 6)

9th March 2017, Thursday

It's time to check out from Kyoto and head down to Osaka today. So we packed our luggage and headed down to the train station. As it was early, we got McD for our breakfast to eat on the train.
When the train arrived, we all boarded and got onto our seat. It was a 10 mins ride to Kyoto and my friends did not managed to finish their breakfast....hahahaa....Then we headed to the metro and traveled down to the hotel. We reached there about 10 plus in the morning. I was surprised the hotel was just opposite the street of Dotonbori and we could see the famous giant crab restaurant from our hotel room.

As it was still early for us to check into our room, we left our luggage and decided to head down to the Osaka Castle. We walked to the metro station and reached the castle around 11 plus. We also had to walk a long way to the castle door. Along the walk, we bought a corn and a bbq cuttlefish. The stall owner asked us where we came from, it was kind of funny as the 3 of us came from different countries. The stall owner also tried to speak to me in Mandarin. Then we continued walking to the castle main gate. There were food stalls on the castle ground and my friend bought a giant crab stick for 700 yen. It was damn nice!!

Giant Snow Crab Sticks..Yummy!

After eating, we went to buy the entrance tickets and headed up into the castle. It was super crowded inside, and we just walked each floor by floor to see the exhibits. After spending some time, we headed back down to level 1. We were playing with the coin engraving machine, it was not cheap though. There were other people being curious on what we were doing while we were using the machine and started to get for them too. After that, we went to walk through the cherry blossom garden outside the castle. There were some trees with sakura flowers and they were beautiful.

After the castle tour, we headed down to shinsaibashi streets and we had ramen in a small ramen shop. After lunch, i brought them to Pablo shop and there was a queue as usual. We decided to get one before going back to the hotel. Then we went shopping in the Disney store, followed that i went on to shop for a new pair of shoes in onitsuka tiger shop. Manged to buy a pair which i like, and it costed around $80 plus after tax refund. (I wearing it everyday to work....hehehee). After that, one of my friends informed that they will head back to the hotel first, so we got a cake from Pablo and they went back. I continued to walk around the streets on my own till late afternoon when i realised i had reached the hotel. So i headed back to the room and it was a tatami style room. There were tea set and snacks provided for us too.

Then i rested while trying to persuade my friends to go for crabs as dinner. Eventually managed to get them to leave the hotel room for crabs dinner. We headed to the one opposite the street, one of Kani Doraku's branches. We had to wait until 7.30 pm and so we walked around the streets to pass time first. It was slightly cold, i got my friends to try the giant scallop i bought in my previous trip. It was still sweet and big but the price had increased. After walking for some time, we went back for our main dinner.

We were seated on the 3rd floor and we ordered two crab sets to share. There were a group of china tourists sitting in front of us and i noticed that one of the staffs was able to speak to them in Mandarin. There was a slight different in the experience, as compared as i had in their main branch.When it was time to cook the porridge, the staff did not let us taste whether the soup was too salty. Instead she tried it herself and continued cooking. Anyway, it was not that salty and still quite nice. We were so full after the meal. My friends were fighting for the fruits too...hahaa...The peach was quite sweet and nice...Too bad my friend didn't get to taste after the other one dropped it.hehehe...

After the delicious dinner, we headed back to the hotel to have our Pablo cake...sooo full!!
Then we all showered and get ready for bed. That's the end of our day.

Hotel Stayed:
Yamatoya Honten

Kyoto 京都, Japan Trip (Day 5)

8th March 2017, Wednesday

Today, we woke up late and had planned to go to Inari. So we prepared and headed down to Kyoto station. We ended up in Hiroshiro Coffee for breakfast, i never try in any of the Singapore branches. But the breakfast set i ordered was nice...and the hot chocolate was nice too. Then we left to take the train but ended up boarded an express train which doesn't stop at Inari station and goes straight to Nara...We were seated comfortable in the train, and we don't want to change the train. Plus, my friends got no objection to go Nara first before going to Inari. As for me, i went both the areas in my previous trips and i wanted to go see Nishiki Market back in Kyoto. In the end, we ended up going to Nara.

We reached Nara in an hour's train ride and we started walking towards Todaiji temple. When we passed Kintetsu-Nara Station, i told my friends i will go back to Kyoto alone to visit Nishiki Market instead. So i left them alone to go explore Nara and have fun with the deers there...hehee...Then i proceeded to the station...because it was not the JR station, i couldn't use my JR pass and will need to buy a train station. I was figuring out how to buy the ticket from the machine as it was in Japanese but in the end i managed to get a ticket for 10 am train. So i went to the platform and boarded the train. Then the train left for Kyoto, i was surprised when the train conductor came to inspect my ticket and told me i got a child ticket instead of an adult ticket...hahahaa..so ma lun...luckily he didn't chased me off the train and just told me to pay the balance amount for the adult ticket...

Child Train Ticket

  Anyway, i reached Kyoto safe and sound, it was already 2 pm..so i headed to the ramen street @ level 10 of Istean building. I went back to the ramen restaurant (Ramen Todai) and ordered a bowl of ramen plus fried rice. Soooo full.....Then i headed out for my adventure, wanted to walk down to the Train Museum. When i walked halfway, i realised that it was almost to 4 plus and checked online that the shops in Nishiki Market were opened till 6 pm.. And so, i headed back and went to the Nishiki Market instead.

Nishiki Market Entrance

There were many shops along the streets in Nishiki Market and noticed that there were many foreigners there too. The shops were selling dried products and fresh seafood, there were different varieties of pickles too. I spent the rest of the day there, finding food and see see look look....it was connected to a few streets like San-jio and Shi-jio.....I finally got a chance to visit an owl & bengal cats forest there, without my friends around. It was actually located in a two-level shop. Owl forest is located on the 2nd level and the cats zoo is located at the lower level. There were roughly 10 types of owls, like the snow owl (the species which Harry Potter used) and the Great Owl. There was a tiny owl too and it was just one round. As for  bengal cats, there were 10 of them for visitors to play with and a free drink is available...There was a time limit of 1 hour per visitor too.....and the staff would pick up the cat and placed it on your laps. But sometimes, the cats just don't want to sit around....hohohoo...

Initially the cats weren't friendly with me, but after that, i got two cats sleeping on my lap....funny thing was one of the cats was just sleeping on top of the other one. When the staff picked up the cat which was sleeping on top to give to another visitor, the cat actually ran back to my side and slept on top of the cat again...so funny....After playing with the cats, i walked along the streets again. There were small small shrines in between the streets too. Also came upon an anime shop where i managed to get some anime items.Then i continued walked between san-jio street (三条駅) and 六条駅....

It started to get dark and it was raining...and the funny thing was i was walking in circles between the two streets...seems like i couldn't find the road out, no matter which turn i took...creepy...anyway, i finally did managed to walk out from the loop and realised that i had ended up in Gion street. By then, it was almost 7 or 8 plus.... While walking back to the train station, i found Maccha House and there was a long queue. A staff was holding a sign indicating 'end of queue' and she informed that they were closing soon when i wanted to queue for the machaa tiramisu. No luck for it....Took the metro back to the hotel...so tired...My friends were already back in the hotel when i reached.

Fried Chicken as Snack...Delicious....

After that, we just exchanged our adventures for the day and we went to bed as we will be going to Osaka tomorrow.

Hotel Stayed:
Hearton Hotel Kyoto

Kyoto 京都, Japan Trip (Day 3)

6th March 2017, Monday

We woke up early today to head out to Kyoto, aiming for the 9:03 am train. We met up at the hotel lobby and did our check-out. Then we headed to take the train to Tokyo main station. It was so crowded at the train platform when we reached Tokyo main station, and we had to drag the luggage towards to the other end for the lifts. We went to buy our breakfast and i got 2 boxes of Tokyo Banana snacks with sakura flavour. Then we went to get our train tickets and went up to wait at the platform. Got some drinks from the vending machine too before the train arrived.

Finally we got on the shinkansen train and went to our allocated seats.... "Off to Kyoto!" ^_^
Had my bento while on the train and we could see Mount Fuji when the train passed by. However, thick clouds were covering the mountain. My friends played their monopoly deal during the ride. I still sat and enjoyed the scenery. We arrived at Kyoto @ around 11 plus and we made our way to the hotel. One of my friends was guiding us to walk to the hotel when we alighted at the station nearest to the hotel. We were walking through the street until my friend guide asked me why were we further from our destination on the google map.... -_-"...hahaaa..it turned out we were going the wrong way. So I took over her phone and followed the map...funny thing was we were also walking one big round on the opposite side of the hotel...hahaa...

Tatami style

My favourite!!

Soba with Ebi

Eventually, we found the hotel, safe and sound which was a relief. However, our room was not ready, so we just deposited our luggage there and went off for lunch. I brought them to the 150 years old soba restaurant (Kyoto Honke Owariya Soba), which was just one minute away from the hotel. We had to queue for a while before we were given a table. We got to sit at the table with Japanese style, which was to sit on the floor...(almost had leg camps after eating...hahaaa..). I ordered back the same soba set that came with 5 stacks of cold soba. One of my friends ordered the same set and the other one ordered a ebi soba set. It still tasted so yummy!!! Bought some of their hand-made cookies too.

After lunch, we headed down to Gion Street as my friends had not been there before. We walked and shopped around the different shops. I bought some souvenirs too and we went to try some green tea desserts. Also, walked through the ancient streets and saw a lot of people wearing kimono. In the end, we walked until the temple at the end of the streets but it was having light rain and the wind was blowing strongly. So we went in to see the temple, we can only see the outside as the temple had closed for visiting. I had walked ahead of my friends, and when my friends can't find me, one of them actually made a "Search for a Missing Cat" short clip..... -_-". Anyhow, they managed to catch up and found me.

Side Dishes

Salt, Pepper & Lemon

Pork Belly

Beef

Then we headed out back to the streets again and we did managed to see a geisha (not sure whether was she a geisha). But many people were just taking her photos without asking and she had to walk very quickly to get away from the attention. After that, we walked to IOIO building to have a toilet break, Then we sat down there to take a short break. After the break, we headed out to find a place for our dinner. We stumbled upon an alley called Pontocho Alley where there were a lot of restaurants. We picked a beef BBQ restaurant (Yakiniku Ponto Cho Teppai) for our dinner and ordered the ohmi beef and pork. We ordered a couple of side dishes, potato salad (which i don't find it nice), we had to bbq the meats too. However, their meat were tender and nice. The staff was quite friendly and she was able to speak with us in English too. We paid $14,461 Japanese yen in total for the meal.

Our room

After dinner, we walked back along the main streets, where we went to the Disney store there. We walked until 9 pm plus. Then we made our way back to the hotel and the hotel staff told us that our luggage was already in our room. So we took the keys and went up to the room. It was slightly bigger as it was with 3 single beds. But my friends slept on one bed and i slept on the other bed. I had trouble to sleep that night as usual (got super loud snoring sound).....hahaa

Hotel Stayed:
Hearton Hotel Kyoto