Friday, July 25, 2014

Japan, Part Two

Ohayou gozaimasu! 

Top of the morning to ya! After a much needed deep, long sleep we awoke for day 2 which involved a trip to Kyoto. First thing's first, though: I'm the realest. Just kidding, breakfast. I am the realest though.

We found a convenience store downstairs. One thing to note about Japan, they love their fried food & white rice, but for the most part, they're pretty healthy. They have a lot of raw food on offer & their packaged juices & smoothies are more real fruit than additives. Breakfast involved this green smoothie (which to be honest, didn't taste that great) and these fresh rice paper rolls; carrot, lettuce & prawns. Yuuuuum.

After breakfast, we hopped onto a train and headed off to Arashiyama, Kyoto. 
 We read online that just outside the train station was a rent-a-cycle & couldn't resist the idea. Top that, it was only $9 per person for the entire day.

My noble steed.



We actually came to Arashiyama in search for the Bamboo Forest, so a bit of cycling & getting lost later, we finally found it. If you decide to rent a bike, but want to walk to the Bamboo Forest, you can park your bike just before the entrance. No locks, no passwords, no worries! Just park your bike there, it'll be safe.

While I do love bike-riding, I would recommend parking your bike & just hiking. There's a lot of people about, so it may be hard to get through. It's a long walk to get to see everything but at least you can be snap-happy about it. A word of warning however, don't make the same mistake I did - wear walking shoes or sneakers! 

 Amongst your walk, you may find this cemetery...

Or this love-letter station...

After a LOT of walking, we decided we were too hungry to go on so it was time to say goodbye to our bikes & find food!

We found a restaurant called Aux Bacchanales which was meant to be 'French cuisine'. Don't really know why we chose to eat French food whilst in Japan but it happened.

I ordered an orange juice & a nicoise salad.
This may be stupid to admit but I didn't know that a nicoise salad was just tuna salad? Sounds a lot fancier! To be honest, I only know what it is because of the movie White Chicks though... hehe.

Patrick ordered a ham & cheese sandwich that I didn't get a photo of.
Shirley ordered an orange juice & quiche.

Dessert was found just next door where we ordered (to share) a berry mix waffle with cream & a baked cheesecake. The cheesecake was one of the best I've ever had. *drool*

Day 2 in Japan was so much fun. Shirley says bike riding was one of her favourite things we did in the entire holiday! Happy & food-filled we made our way back to Osaka to do some shopping at the Pokemon Centre & KiddyLand then headed back to the hotel for rest to be up & ready for day 3.

2 comments:

  1. Biking to the bamboo forest sounds like so much fun! The forest looks beautiful too. Love that last shot of the night cityscape.

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  2. Wow the Bamboo Forest looks absolutely magical. It looks like you had a great time.
    Looking forward to more of your Japan adventures!

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