We travelled from 京都 Kyoto to 大阪 Osaka and first thing we did after dropping our luggage with the hotel was to visit 黒門市場 Kuromon Market! This market has more than 190 years of history and tradition, and is often called “Osaka’ s Kitchen” because of the number and variety of food and products that it contains.
The market is a must-go whenever we are in 大阪 Osaka because we simply love the hustle and bustle of a very lively Japanese market. Or for that matter, any market in any vacation that we go!
The friendly shouting of the stall holders amidst the selling, the abundance of food for tasting, and the smell of the freshness of the produce made us instantly perked up, despite a very rainy day in 大阪 Osaka!
So this is our final night in 京都 Kyoto, and we just had to have a feast!

A first-time trip to 京都 Kyoto would probably be incomplete without paying a visit to 錦市場 Nishiki Market. Despite being a Wednesday, where some shops were closed, there were actually still plenty to see, and it was less crowded too.
We went to check out the many Torii gates at 伏見稲荷大社 Fushimi Inari in the morning, and we discovered that there were now many more Torii gates compared to our previous visit in 2011, making it an even prettier sight. As we were entering the shrine close to 9am, we saw a few visitors leaving 😮 There were easily at least another 20 visitors making their way up at the same time as us, but most of them were quite quiet and orderly in their movements, so it was a rather pleasant walk. Despite the cold, we soon got warm as we slowly made our way up to the view point. Our journey to and fro the view point was about an hour. We were glad we came early; by the time we made our descent, it became really crowded!
Mr J recommended this place to us, and warned us about the long queues at the Kyoto Station outlet, so we were pretty excited when we found the main shop near our hotel! There was a little entrance next to Lipton cafe, and opposite Jeugia, a guitar shop, and we had to walk through a small alley before reaching the restaurant.
We were quite famished for dinner and decided that we should have a great meal for this last night in 四国 Shikoku!
We had seen so many restaurants and stalls advertising the signature dish of 香川県 Kagawa Prefecture, 骨付鳥 Honetsukidori, or roast chicken on bone, everywhere we went in 高松 Takamatsu, that we decided that we had to try it!