Two for one deal!

Sorry, yesterday I was super tired and couldn't bring myself to blog so here we go again!
4/14
We had breakfast at Kyoto Station and went to a bakery that looked promising...alas it was not meant to be as the curry donut was not crispy at all and the wasabi mayo baguette was a little too oily. However, the great thing is that I think I have an inspiration of wasabi mayo for future pigs in a blankets! The best things that we had was an orange earl grey tea croissant. It was crispy and everything it's meant to be! We may be back for more.

We then went to visit some temples before my camera told me that I was low on battery. Because i had just changed the battery a day ago, I didn't forsee that I would run into this problem. We had to rush back to the hotel and charge my battery before resuming our sight seeing. We saw the Golden Pavillion, which is pretty much everything I imagined and more... and seems like a huge pain to maintain! We then went to a zen garden where they also served delicious tofu hot pot meal. Apparently Kyoto is known for its delicatable tofu and it was easy to see why after our meal! The tofu was silky soft and easily assumed the flavors of the dish. We then walked by a couple of other temples before heading to Osaka!

Osaka was only an hour ride away, so we went there for takoyaki which are these balls of flour/egg mixture which a hunk of octopus in the middle. It was so soft and custardy in the middle and slightly crispy on the outside. There was a huge food fair at the department store nearby. There were samples and crazy lines everywhere. I was overwhelmed... finally, we went to dinner at a okonomiyaki, which is a pancake with cabbage, seafood and meat mixed in. Even though I was super full(a theme for this trip), I ate a little more than I should because it was so good!

4/15
We woke up early to move from our hotel to the nice Hyatt in Kyoto... it's absolutely fabulous... and even though we've walked 6 miles today, we're going running in the gym tomorrow! A girl's gotta maintain her figure! We went to a temple that is famous for its clean spring water which was fabulous albeit a little crowded due to the great number of school kids on field trips. We then went to more temples and shrines before landing at this fantastic mackarel sushi place. We even saw Samantha Brown from Travel Channel! I guess she's filming in Kyoto! Hiro mistakenly thought that she was from the whale hunter show. School children went wild when they saw her.. I'm pretty sure they didn't recognize her, but was fascinated by her blond hair and camera crew. If anyone watches her show, please let me know if I'm on tv! I'm wearing a grey hat with orange and white striped sweater! Lunch was delicious as usual, so much so that we even took an entire sushi to go for dinner! We then went to the silver pavillion and enjoyed a delicious tea and dessert combo.

We then bought some food at a department store for dinner and ate it luxuriously in our hotel room. We just came back from a temple that is lit up at night. Hiro says that they do this sometimes to showcase the cherry blossom trees. There were no cherry blossoms at this temple, but there was a zen garden with neon lights... It almost felt like I was at a discotheque!

Anyway, on to the pictures. I can't believe I'm getting ready to go home soon!


Samantha Brown!