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 had fun strolling around, just looking at the merchandise, and also snacking along the way. The popular soy doughnut shop was opened, and we got ourselves some Soy Doughnut (¥300). A pity it was not piping hot, but still not bad. It certainly tasted different from the soy doughnut that we had at 嵐山 Arashiyama.
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.
Other than 黒門市場 Kuromon Market and 道頓堀 Dotomburi, we had no idea what else we wanted to do in 大阪 Osaka, and so had only planned for a one night stay in 大阪 Osaka, mainly because it was easier to catch our 11:00 flight at 関西空港 Kansai Airport. That was when Ms V found out that there was Wizarding World of Harry Potter (WWHP) in Universal Studio Japan (USJ), that launched in 2014. To go, or not to go?
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 initially wanted to visit
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!
Despite being a cloudy day, we decided to go ahead with our day trip to 小豆島 Shodoshima Island. We took the 9:30am ferry (return tickets ¥1320) from 高松港 Takamatsu Port to 草壁港 Kusakabe Port on Shodoshima, and one hour later, we arrived at 小豆島 Shodoshima Island!
Hubby had read about this place near our hotel that was popular for miso soup and homecooked style food, so off we went for dinner. We were quite lucky as we managed to get the last table 🙂