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Japan Trip
Day Four Kyoto Nishiki Market, Ponto-cho
Breakfasts were included during the tour. At this particular hotel we had three options, I think: Japanese, Western sit down or Western buffet. We tried all of them. The buffet was subpar. The sit down restaurant was beautifully refreshing in light colors with humongous windows overlooking the city. The food was okay, but I was served an omelet that looked like it had egg guts in it. Apparently that's how they serve it in Japan because I saw it frequently. Our favorite breakfast was served in the Japanese restaurant. We didn't know half of what we were eating but it sure was fun opening up all the little containers and gawking at the strange contents. We tried everthing, and finished most of what we tried.
After breakfast, it was time to leave Tokyo and head to Kyoto. Here we are preparing to ride the Shinkansen, or bullet train. Mara's thrilled, as you can tell.
Bye bye, Asuko (or however you spelled your name). Our guide in Tokyo was really sweet.
Kyoto station. It was a relief to finally be here after a two and a half hour ride. Funny thing about Kyoto that I noticed right off the bat: everyone stared at us. I guess they don't get many Westerners in Kyoto? People would literally stop whatever they were doing and stare at our group. Some would even wander over and listen to what our tour guide was saying. One guy took a picture of us. It was really weird because in Tokyo people go out of their way to *not* look at you, yet here we were the equivalent of space aliens.
Here is the Nishiki Market, pretty famous in Kyoto, apparently. It starts off with clothing and regular product stores, then turns into a food market at the end.
We found a photo booth store, which took us a little bit to figure out because you entered one booth where you did all your posing, then you left it and entered a different booth where you did the customizing, like adding in all that goddamn glitter. We originally walked into the customizing booth and started drawing things all over these pictures of these girls, thinking they were just samples or something. The curtain was swept aside and the girls' parents yelled at us in Japanese and eventually made us understand that we were in the wrong booth and were messing up their daughters' pictures, lol. We figured it out, though, and ended up with these lovely works of art. Too bad there weren't any farm animals. I really wanted a farm animal in my picture.
Veggies. Choose wisely, sir.
Rice.
A stall full of goo. I swear, most of the Japanese confections are made using rice flour paste and some kind of bean or sesame seed paste. So everything has the consistency of firm snot.
Fishies. While we were waiting for the rest of the group to gather, Mara and I asked our tour guide about places to get a tattoo. She freaked out, warning us not to get them done in Kyoto. I'd forgotten about the yakuza connection to tattoos. She said no one did it for fashion in Kyoto and also that it was dangerous because they didn't always change the needles and the risk of catching hepatitis was high. So we nixed the tattoo idea. Across from our hotel was the Kyoto train station and an area called Ponto-cho, which was filled with restaurants.
Window display for the Berry Cafe. Outside of the food 'district' were two malls, both inside the station. Since our favorite pasttime was shopping, the girls and I hit the mall. We had a lot of fun shopping for clothing. Japan fashion (not counting loligoth and fruits) appears to consist of wearing whatever favorite garments you want, regardless of whether they match. It's not like Western haphazard style, where the mismatching *does* subtly match, or fruits, where you're deliberately trying to be quirky. Japanese women don't seem to care *at all* whether their outfits go together. Plus, they wear a lot of old, beat-up shoes that also don't match anything they're wearing, and not in a cool way. The result at first causes you to do a double-take, wondering whether it was wash day and they were down to the back of the closet for choices. Then you decide, hey, that's kinda cool. How many times have you seen a purse or a pair of shoes that you just loved but didn't buy because it wouldn't coordinate with anything else in your wardrobe? If you were in Japan, you would wear your favorite red shoes and your favorite animal print bag and favorite gold lame sweater with green leg warmers and you'd fit right in. Love it. Some clothes I bought because they were on sale. I ended up with 8 tops for around $100:
After eating Chinese, I think, we stopped for desserts. Mara and I each got chocolate parfaits and Lauren got this green tea confection with red beans, glutinous rice balls and something crunchy. She didn't eat it all, lol.
Squee! My new purse. I love it so much. It's polka dotted on the inside, too!
Look at the bows!! So we ended our day with shopping, but there would be more to come. Next: |
