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

Arashiyama 嵐山, Japan Trip (Day 4)

7th March 2017, Tuesday

Today, we were going to Arashiyama.....finally a new place for me...We woke up early and got ready for our adventure. We headed down to Kyoto train station, it was super cold (Some areas of Kyoto were still snowing) and there was light rain. I wanted to have ramen for breakfast in Istean's ramen street. But we were too early and all the restaurants were not opened yet. So we ended up in one of the bakery and had some breads. I bought a small rice sushi and a hot chocolate for my breakfast.

After breakfast, we headed to the train platform to board the San-Li JR train.The train was also crowded and we had to take to the 6th or 7th stop. Once the train arrived in Arashiyma, a lot of people alighted too. It was freezing cold and strong winds were blowing. My pants were dropping too as it was big in size and i didn't put on my belt....regretted didn't bring along my belt... :P
Anyhow, we walked down the street to Tenryu-ji Temple (Tian Long Shi), which was ranked first among of the 5 Zen temples in Arashiyama and it was registered as a world's heritage site too. The entrance fees consists of visiting the temple alone or it can be combined with the garden walk too. We bought the entrance fees for both the temple and garden. We had to change our shoes for slippers to walk in the temple's grounds.

We could see the pond and mountains from the temple, it was super quiet and peaceful. (I enjoyed the peace there... :) ) We spent some time enjoying the view and peace, the water in the pond looked like it was 'dancing' when the wind blows. Then it suddenly to rain heavily and we had to sit longer on the floor for the rain to stop. But it was really cold and the wind kept blowing. Once we saw the rain lighten, we quickly changed our shoes and went to the garden to have the walk. We managed to see two sakura trees in the garden, one was having white flowers and one was having pink flowers. Many people crowded around the trees to get nice pictures with the trees. We walked through the temple ground and walked into the bamboo grove, which was located at the other entrance of the temple ground.

We walked and took pictures in the famous bamboo grove and there were many people wearing kimonos. There was even a couple taking their wedding photos there. With the wind blowing, we could hear the sound of the wind and the bamboo trees were swaying. Don't know why...i find the sound of the wind very pleasant and made me very peaceful and calm...(although i was thinking on my unfinished assignments, totally put at the back of my mind....hahaha).  While we were walking up the road, i saw a kid eating a hot sausage and turned to my two friends that i want to eat the sausage too..hahahaa...One of my friends said i had to walk to the other end to buy it....sooo hungry.... -_-....
We continued walked till we reached one of the scenic railway station, where there were some food stalls. And one of the stalls was selling hot hot sausages...so we bought one for each of us...soo nice to have something hot in cold weather. We also bought one hot sweet potato to eat...

After resting there, we continued to explore the area and saw orange trees in one of the houses. There was one small shrine (Mikami Shrine) we came across too, it seemed to be worshiping a god of hair...I saw some wishes by other people on the wishes boards, they were wishing to have more and healthier hairs. And the temple charms selling were mini combs...quite interesting (who would thought there is a god for healthy hairs)...hehehe....After that, we continued walking the road and we ended up to the main street while finding Togetsukyo Bridge. There were many people and there were trishaw pullers on the roads. There were many shops and food too. As it was around 2 plus, so we decided to get lunch.

Mikami Shrine

Trishaw

We stumbled upon a restaurant named Saga Tofu Ine, which was showcasing their popular items and interestingly, the food was all made of soya tufu. Each of us ordered 3 different sets so that we can try the different sets. Surprisingly, the food was quite nice and the tofu was very smooth. There was even two different types of desserts in the sets. But the whole set doesn't have any meat inside, so meat-lovers people may not like it...hehehe....After lunch, we went out to the streets for adventures again...
We went shopping in the shops (played a lot gashapon machines and collected stations chops), also saw Togetsukyo Bridge from a distance but we got lazy to walk to the other side of the bridge. There was a mountain opposite the river and the water was flowing from the bridge. There was a long queue at a small shop, selling coffee and the coffee smell was aromatic.

Saga Tofu Ine Menu

Arashiyama Set

Saga Set

Soya Milk Obanzai Set

Ice Cream

Togetsukyo Bridge

However, the sky was turning dark too and it was like only around 5 plus. So we decided to go back to Kyoto. Along the way back to the station, I saw people queuing to buy snacks so i decided to try it. We bought from 2 stalls which were having longer queues, and we walked back to the station while snacking. Then we took the train back to Kyoto station and went back to Istean basement to buy snow crabs for dinner when we arrived. But we didn't find snow crabs there (sadzzz)..so we bought salmon, fruits and some chicken wings back to the hotel.

These are niceeee...

We took turns to shower, then we just on the tv and had our dinner. I finished the whole packet of salmon as my friends don't really eat raw...The TV programme was something like those TV products advertisements, where you can call the broadcast telephone number and buy the advertised products. The two hosts were promoting Hitachi rice cooker, saying that the rice cooker cooks more rice than normal rice cookers and the technology used was using water as a medium underneath. What's more interesting was that the hosts announced that they were giving 30 bags of rice (amounting to 9kg of rice) if you call and buy the rice cooker...hahahaa...

Salmon

Mixed Fruits

Honey Chicken Wings

Strawberries

After that, it was sleeping time after a day of walking....*Snorezzzz.....


Hotel Stayed:
Hearton Hotel Kyoto