Saturday, August 13, 2011

DAY 16: IT WAS 103º TODAY

today we had to switch to our other kyoto hotel. so sad to leave this lovely townhouse! wish we could have stayed here longer. i stared at our rock garden one last time for about 20 minutes straight before having to leave haha...i love it!

we arrived at our other hotel about an hour early, so they took our luggage for us, and we walked to nishiki market!

it's known as "kyoto's kitchen" and it's lined with over 100 shops and restaurants! looooads of fresh produce and seafood here!





sashimi pops! HAHA!

these are cute candies! disguised as bentos!

which color brown would you like to dye your hair? hahaha

this store had really cute handmade items. here is some cute sushi sewn together with fabric!

once we were able to get to our room, we headed back to the hotel and this room is great! nice view!!!

we have a corner room, so our window wraps around the side :)

cute!

lunchtime!

this chip mix looked interesting...also, notice the size of the chip bag. this is as big as they get (from what we've seen in convenience stores and grocery stores). no jumbo bags like back home!

since it was 103º today, we hung out in the hotel for a bit during the afternoon. it was just too hot to want to do much of anything! soon the sun started to set though, and we saw this pretty moon!

at first it was not covered up at all, but of course as soon as i got my camera out, the clouds came and never went away so this was the only shot i could get haha...maybe i'll try again tomorow if it looks nice :)
we saw the sunset reflecting in the windows across from our hotel though! very pretty colors!

once the sun sets, it's not as hot, but it's still surprisingly pretty hot. you walk outside and instantly start sweating because of all the humidity. BUT! the sun isn't out, so it's automatically a bit better. on our way out, i saw our hotel has a wish tree in the lobby. very pretty. maybe we will make a wish and attach it onto the tree!

our hotel also has a bunch of cute cakes! a lot are daimonji related because that is coming up soon on the 16th!

heading down into the subway station, i saw this on the steps! calorie counters for the stairs! how funny! anything to help motivate you to take the stairs! the japanese are very health conscious. 

we decided to go to pronto again to try and get my favorite pasta! this one had it! YAY! soooo good. although, this location (inside the kyoto station) was pretty smokey. a lot of japanese restaurants still have a smoking and a non-smoking section, but this was all smoking since it was so small, and the smoke was very strong at times. gross. but i was still happy to get my pasta! i missed it from our last trip to japan!

melty mozzarella chunks...

afterwards, we walked around kyoto station. it's HUGE! here is kyoto tower outside of it

here is kyoto station!

we kept taking escalators higher and higher! it was pretty cool!

while i was taking this photo, a japanese woman and her daughter came up to us and offered to take our picture for us! so nice!

here it is! 

higher and higher we go!

got to the top! beautiful view of the city!

on the roof, they had a lot of pretty bamboo too. lots of people were relaxing by it.

once we decided to head back to the hotel, we wanted to get something yummy first! mister donut to the rescue! 

we brought home 3 donuts. matcha, blueberry, and custard cream (clockwise starting from the left)

YUM YUM YUM! hopefully tomorrow won't be as hot! we plan on walking through fushimi inari shrine (one of our favorite places!!!) and it's a long walk! we'll see how it goes!

7 comments:

  1. Jac, did you notice the whale sign in the second fish pic? lol

    I am going to be so sad when you go back home, because everyday I just wait for you to update your blog. It's like I travel through your eyes <3

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  2. HAHA! i didn't notice it!!! now i wanna go back and look at it again!
    and awww! i'll be sad when we go back home too lol...it makes me happy you enjoy my blog so much though! glad i'm doing a good job of "bringing you with us" :)

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  3. Oooh Nishiki Market! I remember those sashimi pops! Did you guys end up seeing those “tako tamago”- (little octopus on sticks)? I couldn’t stomach it the last time, but if we go back, I am going to be brave and try one.

    So funny about the calorie counters on the subway stairs. It is amazing (yet not surprising) how few overweight Japanese people there are.

    You are so funny about Pronto! What is this dish that you had? I need to write it down for our “next time” list… I totally agree about the smoking section. We also ate at the Kyoto station Pronto, and all I smelled was smoke- what a turnoff. For a country who is so health-conscious, it’s amazing that there are still smoking sections.

    Isn’t Kyoto station so beautiful? It was one of the prettiest train stations ever.

    LOL- Mister Donut! You are so funny.

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  4. Hi Jacqui, I'm not sure what we should do for internet access while we are in Japan, did you rent a sim card or portable wifi. This gets a bit confusing for me. We intend taking a couple of ipads, and would like to be able to be connected when on long train rides, for eg we are visiting Dogo Onsen for a day after Miyajima and it will be approx 3-4 hour train ride back to Kyoto. Any suggestions?
    By the way your pictures are fantastic

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  5. @ sara: we didn't see the tako tamago! but if we go back (we might) i will look for those! haha :)

    and LOL about pronto! but yeah, bummer about the smoke :( my pasta was good, but it wasn't even as good as i remember it to be because of all the smoke. so gross!!! what i get is the mozzerella one :) it just has chunks of mozz on top :)

    @sue: as for internet access, the only thing we use is the internet in the hotels. we just always make sure to book hotels that offer internet in the rooms. we didnt do anything with our phones, etc because it was too expensive :\
    we had a 3-4 hour train ride back today from fukuoka to kyoto, and i just played my nintendo DS hahaha...erik slept most of the way. wish i could have been online though! would have been great for blogging! and glad you like the photos! :D thank you!!!

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  6. The calories on the stairs are awesome. We need some of that in America!

    How in the world do you decide where to eat? There are so many options!

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  7. haha yeah, there really are! a lot of it we decide in advance (through reviews online) but also a lot of it is just walking past something and if it looks good, we get that! but...almost everything looks good! so that part is hard lol

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