Shopping in Kyoto

We're on the home stretch now, with what now feels like our never-ending Japan holiday (I guess stretching out recording it is one way of extending a holiday, huh?)!

On our second full day in Kyoto, we took things a lot easier than our first jam-packed day. As such, this will be a nice short and sweet little blog post!

We decided to spend our morning strolling through the main shopping street arcade, Shinkyogoku.

And found plenty of amusement people watching...

And surveying the goods for sale. Who wouldn't want a happy life creator? I wonder how it works?

We even summoned up the courage to poke our noses into a Pachinko hall. It was insane. They play those little machines with ball bearings, so the noise is incredible!

We also found another street market that runs off the main shopping arcade, the Nishiki Ichiba food market.

We wandered around for hours, and then decided to stray away from our so far strictly Japanese-y diet and have a hearty Italian lunch.

It was just what we needed.

Feeling suitably refueled, we then ventured across the river into the Gion district again. Immediately the buildings looked a lot more traditionally Japanese.

We wandered through a little temple complex...

We think this was the temple...

We admired the very fancy walls...

And of course, we admired more buildings and rooves.

And then we hit what must have been the touristy strip of the Gion district.

And found the Yasaka Shrine.

Tom of course had to scratch the welcome lions.

And ring the bell.

 And I of course had to take pictures of more roofs. Are we getting predictable or what?

We exited out of this very fancy gate...

Wandered a couple of streets, and then stumbled across this gorgeous little spot beside a lake and a willow tree.

And we couldn't bring ourselves to leave.

So we sat and watched the sunset from our little bench.

 And oohed and aahed at how the reflection of the pink sky made the lake look really strange.

And then we slowly made our way back the many blocks toward the river.

Although we were stopped in our tracks by the strange sight of a pair of shoes sitting on one of those lantern posts. We decided to leave them where they were, so that they could amuse someone else.

We really should have learned our lesson by now and started catching public transport, but for some reason we couldn't bring ourselves to outlay the cash on the subway. So we trudged the blocks and blocks and blocks back to our hotel. We passed the Pig & Whistle Pub along the way, which was a bit of a surprise...

But we were pretty exhausted from all the walking, so passed up the prospect of going in for a meal, and instead stopped in at a supermarket on our way back to the hotel.

And so, this was our dinner, in the peace and quiet of our hotel room.

Mmm... cold soba noodles and tempura prawns and vegetables. Let me tell you, it was good!!!