TRAVELOG

today was our big travel day. we spent the morning by doing a little more sightseeing, taking a ropeway to a mountain with a great view of fuji as well as a big 'love bell' for you to ring :) there was also a rabbit-themed shrine, so i brought my usagi keychain. a group of middle-aged japanese women loved it and i let them take pictures of usagi in front of the mountain too lol. after that, we took the bus all the way to a city called mishima so we could transfer to the shinkansen there and get to kyoto. we took our time walking around mishima for a bit, visiting a shrine there that housed a group of deer that are apparently relatives of the deer in nara. eventually, we left and finally made it to kyoto. we checked into our beloved m's hotel. we went out for dinner and had a relaxed night.

our first real day in kyoto. we started out by going to some 'must see' shrines/temples that anthony hadn't been to yet, including kinkakuji. in the afternoon, we returned to the area near our hotel and walked around, doing some shopping. there are quite a few surugaya, lashinbang, book-off stores and more within walking distance and the prices are usually pretty good, so i enjoy scoping them out. we made our purchases, including a volume each of a gundam gag manga called kotowaza gundam-san. we tried our best to read them while sitting by the river and eating snacks. we went out for dinner and tucked in for a cozy night at the hotel.

today, we took the train to nara. it was a rainy day, but it was also a saturday, so there were a lot of school field trips going on at the temples. this was my first time seeing todaiji. we got our share of interacting with the wild deer hanging around even though we didn't go through the main park area itself. i was happy to revisit nara and see some of the temples this time, there are a lot of beautiful ones.

At night time we went back to Kyoto and did some shopping. i always like to see how each store has its gundams displayed lol. then, we fulfilled our time-honored karaoke tradition which is always a lot of fun :)

we took a day trip to osaka to visit a doujinshi event that i was interested in. pictures and videos weren't allowed inside the venue, so i don't have much to put here >.< but the event was very cool. it was somewhat like an artist alley at an american convention but of course it was mainly focused on doujinshi and yes most of it was yaoi. i brought my ygo itabag and was delighted to talk to a couple other ygo fans including an artist cosplaying as yami marik who gave me some free goodies and was really sweet. i bought gundam yaoi. holds up my hands. it was fun, and now i'm definitely interested to go to an even bigger event in tokyo if i ever have a chance since this one was on the smaller side.

we took another side-trip from kyoto to go to uji. the town is known for its matcha, and i'm ngl the matcha ice cream and tea we got there tasted the same as it does everywhere else to me but uji was so lush and pretty. everything there was so so green. it was nice to get away from the major crowds of kyoto and osaka. we met a nice old local man who told us some lore about the shrines there. we had lunch and headed back to kyoto. later, we went to an onsen and enjoyed relaxing our weary muscles in the hot water. naturally i couldnt take any pictures there but the bottom left pic here is the lobby area.

for dinner, i went to mos burger. god i love mos burger. i don't care if it's wrong to go to japan and eat their mediocre fast food, i love mos burger. i love the green burger set. it's the only soy based burger i'll eat. it's so good. if loving mos burger is wrong i don't want to be right.