633. Kyoto | Fishing Villages

In the photo above is Amanohashidate, a pine tree covered sandbar connecting two opposing coasts of Miyazu Bay. In Kyoto, we went around some fishing villages and ate seafood for pretty much every meal. We also went on a lake cruise where there were tons of seagulls, falcons and other birds swarming our boat for food. People bought these Cheeto-looking things to feed them.






My favourite "drink" from the vending machines - corn soup (it comes warm).














The largest shrimp I've ever seen/eaten! (the smaller one is a 'normal sized one' for comparison)

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549. Kyoto | Kiyomizu-dera Temple

On our first day in Japan, we visited a Buddhist temple called Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto. It's considered a UNESCO Heritage Site. It was really beautiful there but unfortunately we were only able to stay for an hour and had to rush around. Also it started raining there halfway through. We were here in early Autumn so most of the leaves were still green..it would be a lot more beautiful to come when they've all changed colours though. There were some girls dressed up as geishas walking around taking photos. If we had more time there I would've liked to do it as well..maybe next time!






Hand-washing station outside the washroom














This is called Otowa Waterfall, where there was a loooong lineup to get to. The water is divided into three separate streams. You stick out a cup, fill it up and drink. Each stream represents something different, and you are only allowed to choose one: success, love or longevity. Which would you choose?

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532. Day 18 | Osaka back to Hong Kong

Today we returned back to Hong Kong from Osaka! We had a late afternoon/evening flight so we had the morning free. We visited Osaka Castle then went to a "Premium Outlets" for shopping before our flight. I actually don't like outlets back in North America but the one at Osaka was pretty good..I ended up buying a few things I really love! I mostly got winter/fall clothes here which should be good for when we return back to Toronto (not looking forward to it)..as I heard it's quite cold there now. By the way, here in Hong Kong now it's still in the high 20s/30 degrees.

The past few posts I made on here were quite lengthy so this will be a short post because I have to go to sleep now..almost 2:30am here. Just finished watching The Conjuring (for maybe my fifth time?!) with my sister and uncle..now I'm the only one still left awake so I'm kind of scared lol.





All the dogs in Japan are sooo beautiful and cute! Especially this one we saw today!! She just sat and stared at her owner the whole time while he was eating. Makes me miss mine!

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531. Day 17 | Nara and Kobe

Tonight is our last night in Japan! :( We have a half day here tomorrow then we are back in Hong Kong tomorrow night. This morning the sun finally came out. We went to Nara Park. I was quite excited to see this beautiful heron. I had always wanted to see a heron in the wild. We watched this one catch and eat a few fish.

However I was mostly looking forward to seeing the deer here! There are apparently over 1000 of them that roam the park. I've never had an encounter like that with a deer before..in Canada, all the wild deer are rare to spot and run away immediately as soon as they see you. So seeing them in the wild is always a special moment. & today we even got to go up and pet them all.

We were able to feed them "deer crackers" ..I actually tasted a piece myself lol. It tasted like nothing. I think it's kind of like a dog treat (I've tasted a dog treat before as well..tasted the same/like nothing - as they shouldn't eat sugars or flavours).



They were so adorable! This was an enclosed area with a few younger deer. The others are allowed to roam all around.



Then we attended a sushi-making class which then ended up being our lunch.


Then we went to a city called Kobe, world famous for its kobe beef! We had a few hours here to explore and shop on our own. This bakery we went to was called Uncle Jam's Bakery. They sell all these different kinds of Anpanman breads. I got a chocolate and custard one. Each is a different flavour and it took us so long to choose..I wanted them all lol. They were delicious!!


*Now this is going to be quite a long story, of the most expensive drink I've ever purchased (in a way), which I managed to do even after the store was closed*

So even with a few hours of shopping today, I didn't manage to buy anything. I had actually been really good so far on this trip. We've been around Shanghai, Hong Kong and now Kyoto/Osaka for over 2 weeks already and I had purchased really little. I always thought the main thing I wanted to get on this trip was a new camera.

That is until we got back to the hotel tonight. Our hotel here is huge and has a LOT of clothing boutiques but unfortunately, we are always out during the hours they're open so we never got a chance to shop around here. We arrived back at our hotel tonight around 8:30pm. All the clothing shops in the hotel close at that time as well or even earlier. Except for a 7-11 convenience store. Last night we went there I got a "16 Tea" - tea made from 16 different vegetables. It was really nice to drink, especially before bed, so I wanted one again tonight. So..that ended up being the most expensive tea I have ever purchased lol. Because I ended up buying a pair of shoes along with it!

Yesterday I mentioned trying on sandals with fur at the department store. I had been wanting fur shoes for a long time already; ever since I discovered the Pierre Hardy fur sneakers. Unfortunately those ones weren't able to be shipped to Canada because of the fur I assume, and over the past few weeks I've seen some fur ones here in Asia but none were even close to what I wanted. I actually have kind of a different taste in fashion than most people..the fur shoes are kind of crazy and I don't know if many people like them, but I really love them. This is what they look like. I should also mention that I don't like many things but when I find something I do like...I try to get it no matter what.

Anyways back to the tea purchase. After I got the tea, my mom wanted to walk through one hallway as there was an art store with some nice paintings/dolls in the window that she wanted to look at. Right beside that boutique was another where I spotted some pink fur sneakers in the window. They caught my eye immediately as the style was exactly what I wanted (& now I realize I like them even more than the Pierre Hardy ones). The shop had already been closed for maybe 20 minutes, but the 2 sales associates were still inside possibly eating their dinner. They saw us peeking in..then told us they were closed but let us in anyway as I said all I wanted to do was take a look at the shoes. I didn't even think to buy them because they were bright pink. Then she comes up behind me with the pair in another colour...the perfect shade of navy blue!! My favourite colour. They were so beautiful I knew I wanted them immediately. I tried them on and immediately loved them. Slowly got past the sticker shock and decided to buy them. I know if it was anything else, this would have been a really impulsive purchase (since I was kind of forced to make a decision to buy them or not right away..as the store was already closed and I felt bad for asking to go in after hours). But the sales associates were so nice and patient, as they all are in Japan. I knew if I didn't get them I would regret it, and I had been wanting shoes like that since forever. & finally found the perfect ones :D

I ended up purchasing them and they walked us out the store. There was a looong hallway to walk up the stairs to the lobby, but the sales associates stood there waving to us and bowing the entire time, until we were out of sight. We know this because we looked back a few times to check if they were really still there lol. It was probably a 20-30 second walk.

I will post pics of them a later time but they are on my Snapchat (username - leftbanked) if you want to take a look! ;)


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530. Day 16 | Shinsaibashi, Osaka

This morning when we left the hotel, it was still pouring rain but luckily it stopped before lunchtime. First we visited a fishing village where we went on a short boat tour around the lake and had the opportunity to feed seagulls and some large hawks (or eagles?). We were able to buy shrimp crackers to feed them while on the boat, but I didn't as back in Canada we're not allowed to feed wild animals as it's not good for them. But a lot of other people on the boat did so I watched and took a lot of pics. There were so many of them and they all swooped down so close to us..I was afraid they'd fly into us lol.



Then we went to a place called Amanohashidate for a beautiful view. Afterwards we had a kaiseki style lunch at a restaurant. Having lots of seafood these days here! We ordered these two shrimps..the largest I've ever seen in my life!! For a sense of scale, you can see the size of a regular shrimp in the cup near the top of the pic. Also the man at the table beside us was holding one and pretending it was a telephone handset as it was that large lol.



In the afternoon we went to Shinsaibashi for a few hours and stayed for dinner. This is the main shopping area of Osaka. I loved it here!! There was a lot of Halloween stuff going on and some people dressed in costumes. Most people weren't dressed up though which was nice because I love observing Japanese fashion. It's not as crazy in Osaka as it is in Tokyo though. I really love Japanese style (male and female)..now I really want to visit Tokyo again sometime in the near future.

We had a few hours free to shop around in the area and was supposed to have dinner at 7pm in the restaurant. My mom and I were in a department store during the last 20 minutes or so. I wanted to get a pair of shoes (very cool sandals with fur)..so I was trying them on while my mom went to the floor right above me to look at clothes. She told me to just wait for her at the shoe department and she would come back down to meet me after. Unfortunately the shoes I wanted were out of my size (the very nice sales person was extremely apologetic) so I then stood around waiting for my mom.

She took a long time and then it was 7pm..so I started panicking as we would be late for dinner. I hate being late especially when we're on these tours. Several years ago when we went on a tour to Europe we were always the late ones due to shopping..again lol. So I didn't want it to happen again. We would still have to walk about 10min to the restaurant and I wanted to go at a slow pace so I could take photos along the way. I thought of going up to look for her but then I was afraid she'd be coming down at the same time (on the opposite escalator)..then not see me there and start walking around again..etc. I also didn't know if I would even find her upstairs as it was a huge store so maybe I should've just stood there to wait. By the way, my mom isn't able to use her cell phone here so I couldn't call or text her either.

So I thought..I'd quickly run up, have a quick look around then go right back down. Well I started running up the escalator and tripped and fell almost immediately lol. I thought to myself "I'm sure these extremely nice and polite Japanese people will help me up and ask if I'm ok!" Turns out they are only extremely nice when they have to be..like at the store or restaurant lol. I had suspected maybe it was all a show, as some are really exaggerated with their gestures. Maybe I encountered the exception because some of them are probably actually nice all the time..but the girl I fell right beside just looked down at me then back to her phone. Same with the people a few steps above who saw. It was soo embarrassing hahah. Very painful too. I don't really care about how they reacted but I just noticed it is a huge difference from how they are in other situations. Reminds me of when bartenders or servers are extremely nice to you in the restaurant then pretend they don't know you on the street.

I got a few painful scratches (see my Snapchat/"leftbanked" for a pic). I seem to always injure my legs when I'm on vacation (last year I got 80+ mosquito bites on my legs while in Hong Kong). Anyway I ended up picking myself back up, finding my mom upstairs then we rushed to the restaurant and was maybe 15min late.

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