Japan Day 2 - Tokyo to Kyoto (28 Nov 2010) *part 2*

Events:

0500: wakeup

0600: checked out of Takanawa Keikyu Hotel

0615: arrived at Shinagawa station, bought Ekiben

0710-0948: Shinkansen from Shinagawa to Kyoto station

1030: arrived at Kyoto hotel, but room is not ready yet

1045: arrived at Nishiki Market 

1200: arrived at Gion

1310: arrived at Pagoda

1400-1430: lunch at a cafe at Kiyomizu-michi

1430-1630: Kiyomizu-dera

1725-1745: bus

1755-1825: checked in hotel

1905-1935: Dinner

1935-2000: Daimaru basement

2000-2010: shopped for drinks at FamilyMart

2020: arrived at hotel

Expenditures:

750+850yen: Ekiben

210x2=420yen: subway from Kyoto to Shijio station

120yen: rice cracker 

400yen: Potato butter tenpura

2050yen: cheese sandwich + assorted sandwich + cold chocolate drink 

300x2=600yen: entrance to Kiyomizu-dera

500x3=1500yen: 3 amulets from Kiyomizu-dera

300yen: cream puff

210x2=420yen: Bus fare 

1950yen: dinner

378yen: 2 sponge cake from Daimaru basement

100yen: Fried Potato from Daimaru basement

105yen: Sushi from Daimaru basement

260yen: Gyoza from Daimaru basement

210yen: Ice chocolate drink + Ice lemon tea drink from 7-11

Other entries of this day: part 1 / part 3 / part 4

Walking across the Shijio bridge over to the Gion area

a building being covered entirely to prevent construction noise from disturbing the surroundings

Gion

Gion

Gion

Gion

a deserted alley off the main street in Gion

Street signs on the ground at Gion

Leaving Gion area, in search of the Kiyomizu-dera

random back alley near Gion

random street

Alf, who took over my DSLR since I don't wanna lug it around in Japan...so I used my new compact camera throughout the entire trip.

Yasaka Pagoda

 We were walking around in search of the Kiyomizu-dera, however we somehow ended up at Yasaka Pagoda instead.  Saw some Maiko here.  Not sure if they are real Maiko or tourists dressed as Maiko.

Random back alley...we opted to take this route towards Kiyomizu-dera since it looks like a shortcut on the map.

1 of the many times where Alfred hit his head on this trip.

Finally found Kiyomizu-michi, which is a street with shops that leads up to Kiyomizu-dera

Kiyomizu-michi

Kiyomizu-michi.  

 Lots and lots of people here (maybe because it's a Sunday?).  This street is an uphill climb.  We were already very very tired by the time we arrived here since we woke up at 5:30am to catch the 7am Shinkansen to Kyoto, then we walked all the way from our hotel at Kyoto Shijio area, to Nishiki Market (which is already a very long street by itself), across the Shijio bridge, through Gion area, through Yasaka pagoda....and finally up this hill.  We dreaded to think that we will have to walk down this street again eventually after our visit to Kiyomizu-dera later in the day.  

 We were very hungry, tired, in need of a rest, and so we had a meal at a cafe along Kiyomizu-michi.  I'd have preferred to have Japanese cuisine instead of sandwiches, however, almost all of the other restaurants and food outlets on this street have either a long queue or waiting list.  So we chose this little cafe where we did not have to queue.  It was expensive but I loved the iced chocolate drink.

Cheese toast

Iced Chocolate drink with vanilla soft serve.  Extremely nice.

Assorted sandwiches