Yesterday was our first full day in Kyoto. After a few days in Yakushima where we had a few chill out days we were ready and rested for more sightseeing. First place to check out with Nishiki Market, which has a history of 400 years of being “Kyoto’s Kitchen”. It has 130 vendors selling produce, street food, and gifts. I was excited to try a few different foods on a stick, kind of like the MN state fair, but unfortunately we were too early and places didn’t open yet until 10am.
I was kind of trying to dissuade Joanna into wanting to go to Nara Park to see the deer there because we already saw deer in Yakushima Island, they’re kind of jerks where they nibble on your stuff, headbutt you, or stick their heads in your bags to get food, and…well we have deer at home but she was motivated to seeing how aggressive they could be.
We took the subway out to Nara Park and right when we exited the subway station there were a bunch of deer just chilling the grass letting people take pictures of them.
Joanna wanted to pet them and take pics right away but I said there were plenty more deer to see so we kept moving.
There are vendors peppered around the park selling a stack of cookies to feed the deer with. They’re made of wheat flour and rice bran so they’re not unhealthy for the deer but I’m not quite sure what else they eat. To give you an idea of how much money these vendors make, in October 2019, they increased the price from 150 yen to 200 yen. This 50 yen ($.35 USD) increase was estimated to translate into an additional 100 million yen (US$926,000) in revenue for merchants.
I found the exact spot I took a picture with the deer in 2015 when I first visited and tried to recreate it.
Joanna had fun making the deer bow before giving them a treat. She said they’re like big dogs. Some people were freaking out when the deer would lose patience and chase them around for the cookies. I even saw one try to kick a kid. One headbutted Joanna a few times until she gave them a cookie. I think she was just reinforcing bad behavior at that point.
Joanna pointed out that one of the deer was kind of disheveled and something was wrong with one of its eyes so it kept it closed. We both agreed that it kind of resembled Speedy.
After we got our fill of the deer we walked into the main shopping area of Nara and found a large crowd around one of the shops. I realized that it was a famous 30 year old mochi shop that I’ve seen videos on youtube and instagram of. Here’s a fun video giving their history from a few years ago.
I didn’t have to wait in line long as the “show” of them pounding the mochi with mallets was over. I think a single mochi stuffed with red bean paste and dusted with roasted soybean flour was about $1. It was warm, chewy, and not too sweet (excellent compliment for Asian desserts).
We found an izakaya to grab lunch at called Shikamaru down the street from the mochi place. I was able to fulfill the void that was left the previous night as I wasn’t able to get my favorite grilled chicken skewers that’s common at Japanese bars. We got plum wine sodas, shimeji mushrooms, tofu salad with roasted sesame dressing, fried scallops and trumpet mushrooms, grilled beef with wasabi and grated ginger, and an assortment of grilled chicken in a teriyaki glaze (breast with green onion, cartilage, heart, skin, and thigh). It was all really good and the service was great too. I feel frustrated that I’ve only got enough stomach room to have about 5 meals a day not including the ice cream breaks. There’s too much good food in Japan!
We headed back to Kyoto proper, both very tired from all the walking we did around the park. I knew that if we went back to our hotel early, we wouldn’t want to leave. Joanna took us around some shopping centers to look at stuff and then we found an arcade with photo booths in them.
You’re probably used to the photo booths where you sit and take 4 pictures and it prints them out in a strip on the outside of the booth. The ones in Japan are super high tech. It offers you poses you can choose from, different backgrounds, and you can edit them on a touchscreen after you’ve taken the photos. The software also makes your face skinny, enlarges your eyes, and applies makeup to your face. I couldn’t figure out how to not have it do that but it’s a default setting where it won’t let you be your ugly small-eyed self so I went with it. Here’s a few choice photos, we’ll probably do it again in Osaka to kill time.
Oh what? It was already time to have another meal? We burned a lot of calories so of course it was time to eat again. I picked a sushi train restaurant where the sushi chefs stand in the middle and make random plates of sushi which rotate around. I love these restaurants because they’re quick, everyone can get what they want easily, and the soft serve hot water/green tea at every setting is a very convenient feature. Of the plates that I remember eating, I got tuna, eel, and salmon with onion.
The cool thing about these restaurants is that each plate color signifies a different price value of the sushi. When you’re ready to pay they come by with a wand that scans your stack of plates and instantly tells you how much you owe. I was a little disappointed by my short stack but the sushi was just ok quality and I didn’t want to overstuff myself just to stack up plates.
Took another super relaxing bath in the public bath house again when we got back to the hotel. Went to bed early as we had to get up early the next day to beat the crowds at the Fushimi Inari shrine. Will have lots of pics to show so stay tuned.
Hilarious pics. I don’t get why you too were given a bright red lip. lol
Mukbangers altered my perspective on sushi trains. They do 100+ plates easy.
Love this adventure. Especially the eating part. I want a baby dear. Fawn!!