Morning!!! It was weird to wake up in a bunk bed surrounded by people after sleeping on a futon in my own bedroom for more than a month! But it was great. I love being surrounded by my friends!
After a quick conbini breakfast,
we went shopping again, this time in the department store right near our hostel.
You can't pass up this photo op. A random blow up Pikachu? yes please.
This store was dedicated to manga/ Japanese cartoon characters and such. I didn't know any of the characters, but it was still so awesome. So many products for each character!! bandaids, pencils, trading cards...
and fuzzy hats.
With our modern day culture fix satisfied, we then went the more traditional tourist route with a jaunt to the Ginkakuji (The Silver Pavilion).
After about a 30 minute bus ride, using our 500 円 unlimited bus pass for the day, we took the Philosopher's Path, named after Nishida Kitaro, one of Japan's most famous philosophers who practiced mediation on this path on his daily walk to Kyoto University.
Then after passing all the temptingly delicious food stalls, we arrived at Ginkakuji!
I've been to Kyoto once before with my family, so I've done all the tourist destinations and shrines, but Ginkakuji was one of my favorites and I didn't remember it too well. So there I was!
The perfect mound of sand is amazing. It's supposed to symbolize Mount Fuji. I think it symbolizes the perfectionistic Japanese who manage to do crazy stuff like maintain a sand pile.
The temple, unlike Kinkakuji which is covered in gold leaf, is not actually silver. It was supposed to be covered in silver foil, but...the Onin war happened. Then procrastination. Such is life. Oh well! I like it better this way anyway! More natural.
The carefully raked sand is the most. It just makes me calm down from my normally hyped up state.
Every element of the garden is just so beautiful! I had to narrow down my pictures since I was just taking them all over the place!
At the top, you can see the view of the temple with Kyoto in the background. We have been so lucky with the weather!
Back to the Eki!
Since we were planning on going to Osaka for the rest of the day, we had a quick conbini lunch before meeting up with Emmy, Marina, and Aidan at the Eki to catch our train.
Cold Chinese noodles for less than 400 円. I love the conbini.
Here is Kyoto Station. Isn't it amazing? Looks like a futuristic world of holograms and robots.
and of course, perfectly packaged food.
tic tac toe. three in a row! Plaid masters.
After about a 45 minute train ride, we arrived in Osaka! We really had no plans, so we just started wandering and ended up...surprise! shopping!
We ended up in this heaven of a store called Tokyu Hands. It basically had any kind of cool Japanese thing that you could ever want, but don't really need. Like rows and rows of stickers, stationary, pens and pencils, iphone cases...it was magical!!!
They had such a cool array of weird sodas: cream puff, tomato, caramel, wasabi, matcha, kimchee, mango, peach, salt...everything. all in the most beautifully designed bottles!
I bought the Curry flavored Ramune soda and the Almond Tofu flavored soda...just because they sounded weird.
Just look at the labels! Art, I tell you. Art.
Now on to Shinsai Bashi Suji Shopping arcade! It was similar to the one we went to in Kyoto.
Just an amazing array of stores, filled with people, food, and consumption.
These stir fried mochi soup dumplings made Marina and I make a triple take. We passed by three times and ogled the lil balls of happiness. But our group was on a mission to find a good gyuniku tabehodai place (all you can eat grilled meat), so we abstained.
It was amazing how many people were out and about.
It started raining, and a roof top of umbrellas unfolded.
After our simultaneous shopping and gyuniku scouting, we finally found a restaurant fit to our liking! It was about 2,200 円, so pretty pricey, but so worth it.
At a tabehodai restaurant, the menu lists all the cuts of meat, seafood, and vegetables that you can order to grill yourself in front of you. There are also tons of other items to order, like stonepot bibimbap and kimchi. But we were there for the MEAT. We got so many different types, I couldn't keep track.
Below is a variety of our meats thrown on our grill, along with root vegetable with cheese and bacon, bibimbap, and our trip of desserts (Japanese creme caramel, yuzu sorbet, and small cube of sponge cake).
Kanpai!
Tripe. It was chewy. Not bad...but chewy.
Our group with the awesome waiter.
Look at all the people through the arcade!!!
Giant crab with the signature pointing pose = successful day in my book.
Since all the stores were closing around 9-10 ish, we decided to play some games at the arcade!
Aidan and I played Marina and Emmy in a round of air hockey. Me and Aidan won by a mile. nbd.
We didn't want to miss the last train going back to Kyoto so we decided to head out around 11 pm. Back to Kyoto for a second round of hostel sleeping!
No comments:
Post a Comment