Japan 13 - 27 Mar 2016 Day 5 - Osaka Ichiba Kuromon Market Kyoto Fushimi Inari Kiyomizudera

Each spring, one of the 6 annual Grand Sumo Tournaments is held in Osaka. The 2016 tournament was held at the Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium which is walking distance from our apartment. I wanted to experience this tournament and woke up early to queue up for the Sumo Basho general tickets that were sold on the day itself as I did not manage to purchase the reserved tickets in advance over the internet. Honestly i didn't think that the tickets would be sold out that fast.

Saw a Yakult Delivery on the way

The day starts at 8.30 am and ticket sale starts at 8 am. Again, I underestimated the queuing power of the people here, because when I reached the gymnasium at 8.20 am, the general tickets were all sold out. :(

So Tragic.........

Just as I walked out, drums starting playing! It sounded so darn exciting ARGH!!! I could only take some pictures from outside T.T

View of the gymnasium from across the road. Drum player at the top left!

Zoom up to the drum player hurhurhur

So after feeling depressed for a while and hanging around outside the gym, I started on my way to Kuromon Ichiba market to meet RJ for food. But as I was looking at the GPS, I realised that i could make a quick detour to Hanamaruken Ramen! I had really wanted to try the ramen there!

Hanamaruken Ramen @ Namba

Sat awkwardly at the corner of the small ramen joint, and when the ramen chef realised I do not speak Japanese, he handed me the lifesaver, the eigo menu.

After a quick look at the menu, I decided on the 'Recommended'. Why? Cos it is the biggest and has everything HAHAHA.

Waiting for my ramen!! Yay!

My everything ramen!

 When the ramen came, I was stunned. It was HUGE. The pork is not a slice, it is a Slab. A Big Slab that can be used to slap people hard. Look at the bowl, it takes up the entire width of the picture. Again, I've ordered something that is bigger than my head. BUT! The noodles were smooth, springy, and the pork was so melt in your mouth. Yay!! !!!!

After I finished the ramen as best as I could, I speedwalked down to Kuromon Ichiba market to meet RJ. There was so much food over there. SIGH. Why don't I have an additional tummy or like temporary intestinal worms or something.

Kuromon Ichiba Market

Coffee Beans

Fermented Stuff

Look at that crab burger!

We ordered the big scallops (circled them in red in the picture above) as they look so yummyyy, but unexpectedly, the grilled scallops were tough and very chewy. The taste was pretty ok, but the effort we made into chewing up the scallops made our jaws ache. So that was like a waste of our money.

What we loved were the strawberries!! They were big, juicy and sweet! XOXO!

We then rushed off to check out from the apartment and while trying to figure out the best way to get to Kyoto, we met the owner of the Airbnb apartment!! She very nicely informed us that we should take the subway to Nishi Umeda station and walk to Osaka Station. From Osaka Station, we took a JR train to Kyoto Station in about 35 mins.

Our view from Osaka to Kyoto

Upon reaching Kyoto Station, we went off in search of Ten-ichi at the 11th floor, a yummy restaurant that sold tempura.

I ordered the most economical tendon option, as I am not a fried food fan, and I was trying to keep to my 8000yen per day budget. I believe it was about 2100yen. RJ ordered the 2500plus yen option. When the tendon arrived, it was a pleasure to look at cos it looked so yummy. And surprisingly, it was not overly oily and tasted really good! Sadly there was some awkwardness halfway through the meal when we found out that we were eating each other's tendon. OMG. I was taking in RJ's mushrooms, shrimp batter mix, and she was eating my cheaper option.  most X_X thing was that I had wanted to save some money yet ended up eating the more expensive one.

However that is no matter because Ten-Ichi is the best tempura I have ever eaten. I feel sad now when i think of tempura because I have no idea where I can go to eat such tempura back in SG.

After a satisfying lunch with an awkward ending, we went off to our apartment which was walking distance from Inari Station. When we reached, I realised that the Fushimi Inari shrine is directly outside the Inari Station. Literally a stone's throw away. Due to the proximity of the shrine, there were quite alot of people and vehicles moving up and down the narrow street. It wasn't much fun pulling a large luggage by the roadside in such a situation. And when we reached the apartment, we found out that... the room was on the 3rd floor..

Look at the steep stairs

Finally... the luggage's up.. excuse me pls I need a back massage

 The good thing is that the apartment was very charming and exactly how it was shown in the pictures. It was very clean and I liked it alot:

As our apartment was near the Fushimi Inari Shrine, that was the first place that we went to.  Fushimi Inari Shrine is famous for its thousands of torii gates that lead into and up Mount Inari.

My first look at ladies in kimono visiting the temple lol. I think the ladies appear to enjoy it alot.

When we reached, the sun was already on its way down. We had to check out the torii gates and really had a blast trying to get the best picture.

A bad thing happened though. While walking through the gates, RJ missed a step and sprained her foot. I had a rub from the polyclinic earlier when my back hurt and i happily rubbed it on for her hard. But i think that could be a wrong thing to do since her doctor said not to rub it. Sorry RJ! We then slowly continued for a while more before we moved out of the shrine.

We had planned to visit Kiyomizu-dera as there was a night festival of some sorts and RJ felt that she could still make it, so we proceeded to take the train to Kiyomizu-Gojo Station and walk over to the temple.

Fox decoration at the Fushimi Inari Station

The walk from the train station to the temple is quite long. After a 20min walk along the main street, it was another 15min walk up a shopping road leading to the temple. We walked via Sanenzaka, and it was really charming.

Short quaint shop houses line the road and it really made for a nice walk, if not for the fact that RJ was suffering from a sprained foot and that the temple will close soon. One more thing we learnt was that, if google map says it is a 10 min walk, it is actually a 20min walk. LOL. After eons of walking, we finally reached Kiyomizudera.

When we left Kiyomizudera, all the shops along the road were closed, which was a pity but we got to see Kiyomizudera by night! That was great because it isn't normally open at night!

RJ's foot was really bad by the time we got to the bottom of the slope, so we thankfully got into the train and back to our apartment. Tomorrow we will visit Arashiyama and i'm doubly excited because Clarice helped us to make reservations at Shoraian, a boombastic tofu restaurant at Arashiyama!!

Japan Day 6 - Arashiyama Shoraian Kyoto Gogyo