Food, Travel and Doodle: Japan 23 Mar to 5 Apr 2017 Day 11 - Philosopher's Walk / Ginkaku-Ji / Omen / Kiyomizu-dera / Tenka Ippin Ramen

Morning, I went to pack some food from... Osho again ^^. I know it sounds like we keep eating gyozas, but it's just... so suitable for our taste..

After brekkie, we travelled to Ginkaku-Ji and got started on the Philosopher's Walk.

Philosopher's Walk towards Ginkakuji

These custard puffs look yummy so we got 6 of them, but we only managed to try 2 before accidentally dropping them all onto that green carpeted ground LOL.

Ginkaku-ji is a zen temple complex that has the Silver Pavilion, temple buildings, a moss garden and an interesting dry sand garden. I was amazed with the sand garden. Japan's gardens and art always manage to challenge my perspective of art and beauty.

love this

Moss garden..

When I visited Kyoto in 2016, RJ found this udon place called Omen on Google Maps. She just used it to check for food around the area and we went into Omen. It was really good and I thought it would be great to eat it again. There was a branch nearby (Omen Ginkaku-ji) and so we made our way towards it.

Exit and onward to lunch at Omen!

Don't be fooled by the empty looking storefront. You had to write your name on the wait list at the front and... wait.....

The wait was quite long, YK and I had a bit of a hard time trying to hide from the strong sun while trying to wait as patiently as we could.

I opted for the seasonal set

Beautiful! Exquisite-to!

If you go to Kyoto, this is worth a try!

Now that lunch's over and done with, on to our next stop: Kiyomizudera! The last time I was there, there was a special night time event, and the slopes up to the temple were pretty much empty, with all the shops closed. This time we're going in the day time, so I was looking forward to it.

It Was Crowded...

The walk upslope to the temple, so crowded

At this point in time, I was probably only thinking one thing. The sun's a *****. The sun was so strong, I had a hard time enjoying the view.

They all look so pretty

On the way out and down the slopes... the sun was just totally in your face

Sun is a b**** Part 2

The airbnb provided bicycles as part of the rental, so we decided to cycle out for dinner and to get groceries at the nearby supermarket. Dinner location was a ramen shop that we noticed in the earlier area recee: Tenkaippin. Tenkaippin is a well known ramen chain in Japan that originated from Kyoto, and some call it 'Ten-Ichi' for short. The soup is chicken based and you can choose a thick soup (Kotteri) or a shoyu based one (Assari). I decided to go for the blended version: Yatainoaji. As you can see, the prices are also very economical.

The place is relatively small, but obviously bustling with customers.

First, a beer!

These gyozas were really not bad! The gyoza skin was thin and very well done.

My Tenkaippin Yatainoaji Ramen! The soup is so thick, you can see how the soup clings to the sides of the bowl and leaves residue.

Really enjoyed it! YK still talks about it whenever we talk about Kyoto.

Ashita mo Omachitemasu: I'll be waiting tomorrow

O why didn't we eat at this place earlier?!

Grocery Shopping Starts

One thing I never fail to buy when in Japan are the strawberries. I love them so much. They are big red and sweet.

Something funny, we bought so many things and found out that no plastic bags were provided at the counter! We bought 2 plastic bags, and stuffed as many things as we could LOL, things were dropping and sliding all over the place.