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Our last full day in Kyoto has finally arrived, to be honest we are both pretty exhausted from the non-stop exploring of Japan. We didn't want to miss anything in our 1 week stay. So we are starting to tick off the things we have done and make sure we accomplish the ones we haven't.
First stop Nishiki Food Market, we had previously tried to get some food here in the evening but it shuts at around 5pm. The market is located on a single narrow road stretching for around 0.5 km in length. It sold expensive mushrooms, freshly caught seafood, green tea items, fruit and veg etc. We scanned the whole road fascinated with all the different things on offer. The different types of fruit here are massive and there are a few strange looking ones that we've tried in our meals. There are also various stalls selling pickles, which they love! And they pickle literally anything and eat it with rice or seafood. We decided to buy some small potatoes cakes, Matt chose a cabbage one and Nicole prawn. However after the first bite we learnt it wasn't a potatoes cake it was a rubbery fish cake. We couldn't eat it all and quickly hid it in our bags, as there is a lack of bins in Japan , despite this the streets are very clean. It's the cleanest place we've ever been.
Nicole had heard about a Shrine just south of Kyoto, so we jumped on a train and headed down. The district was a mix of suburban houses and tradional
Wooden front shops and tea houses. There were tons of shops to have a look in, most of them seemed to sell miniature ornaments of things we had seen in Shrines, we assume that people have their own Shrine in their houses, maybe?
The shrine itself is a walk up onto Mt Inari following the laid out pathways. But covering the path are bright orange reddish archways made out of wood. The arches were engraved with Japanese writing painted in black, we worked out later that the writing spelt out names and addresses or people and companies that had paid for the arch. They stretched on for quiet a while with pauses every so often for small temples or graveyards. The route was so picturesque, but the amount of tourists made it a little harder to appreciate. We didn't make it to the top as we were so shattered, but we did enjoy the walk back through the arches to appreciate them more.
We stopped for a coffee in a cute cafe, before heading back into the town. They love their coffee, you can buy cans of ice coffee from drink vending machines, in convenience stores and the millions of cute cafes. Matts coffee was made using a syphon, we watched from the bar how they heated the water in one jar so that it created a vacuum to mix with the coffee. All of the cafes look beautiful, they don't do a local builders caf around here! But that's with everything, even the shops in the train stations look like Harrod's, its all so visually perfect.
That evening we decided to be kind to Matthew and explore a Japanese vegan restaurant in town, the food was surprisingly delicious! Nicole finally got to try Ramen, which was nice without all the meat juices and stock. Matthew had his first Tofu experience and enjoyed it. The place was quite busy, which surprised us with meat being a big thing here.
We decided to end our day by heading to the bar associated with our hostel for a drink or two. We met a few people which was nice and played a few card games. It was a nice end to our time in Kyoto.
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