Sunday, December 29, 2013

Japan 2013 Part 4 : Day 4 - Nijo Castle 二条城 and Nishiki Market 錦市場

The posts and summary for the whole trip, can be found here

♥November 25th Monday♥

This is how our room in Sakura looks like. Every night when we got back, we had to lay our futons out and put on the sheets ourselves (sheets were always folded and not laid on the futon after the room was cleaned) and after we woke up, we would fold the futons and put them at the side so we have some space in the room.

We'd stayed in 2 other Japanese style rooms later part of this trip, and the futons were always laid out for us.

Sakura Standard Room

That day we decided to do some city tour. We were told by the staff at the hotel to bring along an umbrella as it would rain later.

We took a bus to visit Nijo Castle 二条城 (Nijojo).

From Japan-guide.com : Nijo Castle was built in 1603 as the Kyoto residence of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Edo Period (1603-1867).

Entrance ticket was purchased via a ticketing machine (¥600 adults, ¥200 children).
Nijo Castle Ticket Machine

Zaria trying zen sand drawing. She wrote 我要回家 (I want to go home), she actually meant going back to the hotel!
Nijo Castle Zen Art By Zaria

Nijo Castle Roof

Girls in Kimono at Nijo Castle

To be honest, I didn't think this was a nice castle to visit. The landscaping isn't that great, and the castle building itself wasn't that interesting. The girls however did learn about the nightingale flour (uguisu-bari), which was a security measure to prevent people sneaking around undetected.
Nijo Castle

Nijo Castle

And just as the weather forecast, it started pouring when we finished our tour at the castle. We took the bus and headed to Kawaramachi 河原町 as we have plans to visit the Nishiki Market 錦市場. Because of the rain, for lunch, we picked the first restaurant that we came across, and lucky us, it's this super nice Udon restaurant Omen うどん, we all ordered set lunches except Zaria who wanted grilled chicken.

Their chili pepper came in a variety of 'flavours'.
Omen Chili Pepper

Here is what we got for lunch.
Omen Grilled Chicken

Omen Set Lunch

Omen Udon Condiments

We had a walk about around the departmental stores at Kawaramachi, i.e. Takashimaya, Kyoto Marui, just because we couldn't walk on the street under that weather.

Busy Kawaramachi

When the rain subsided to a drizzle, we walked to Nishiki Market 錦市場 or Nishiki Ichiba, a 400 years old market located on a road near Kawaramachi, and runs perpendicular to Teramachi Street 寺町通 (a covered shopping street), it is renowned as the place to obtain many of Kyoto's famous foods and goods.

Nishiki Market

There's a small but busy temple at Nishiki, 錦天滿宮 Nishiki Tenmangu.
Nishiki Tenmangu

The rest of the market, is shops after shops selling food stuff (ready to eat, ingredients), tea, kitchen utensil.

Nishiki Market Pickle Shop

Nishiki Market Pickle Shop

Nishiki Market Grilled Eel Shop

Nishiki Market Chest Nut Shop

Nishiki Market Anchovy Shop

Nishiki Market Nara Pickle

Nishiki Market Pickle Shop

Nishiki Market Cake Shop

Nishiki Market Fresh Seafood Shop

Nishiki Market Fresh Seafood Shop

Nishiki Market Fresh Seafood Shop

And for a female, when in Kyoto, a visit to Yojiya よーじや is a must, a famous Kyoto cosmetic/skin care brand.
Yojiya at KawaramachiNot that I bought much from the shop as I try to stick to natural skin care/cosmetic these days.

We wanted a yakitori (grilled chicken) dinner on that cold wet day, so we walked about to search for one; again, it was a lucky find, we went to Yaoki 八百起, which has pretty good food and drinks (the hubs like their Sake, I like their Sawa サワー, i.e. shochu and soda added with fruit juice).

Yaoki Yuba (bean curd skin) Salad

Yaoki Yam Balls

Yaoki Yakitori

After dinner, the rain finally stopped! We walked back to the hotel.

3 comments:

  1. kids always love to be in hotel wan hor...

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  2. Actually kids can have holiday anywhere, as long as there's a hotel with blasting aircon. :P

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  3. [...] 2 : Day 2 – Takao 高雄 Part 3 : Day 3 – Arashiyama and Sagano 嵯峨嵐山 Part 4 : Day 4 – Nijo Castle 二条城 and Nishiki Market 錦市場 Part 5 : Day 5 – Eikando 永観堂, Kiyomizu-dera 清水寺, Higashiyama District Part 6 : Day [...]

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