Japan - Kyoto (Day 1)

Now back to Japan talkin'! Our 2 days in Hiroshima passed all too quickly, and on Day 5 of our trip, we were on our way to Kyoto. But before I get on to that, lets just take a moment to look at the most amazing custard filled bun I've ever eaten.

Sure it doesn't look like much, but this sweet angel was filled with custard, topped with cornflakes and accompanied by a generous glug of dark chocolate. It was awesome.
I also saw alot of these adverts throughout Japan:

It features the rather popular and large (it has 88 members!) Japanese girl band , AKB48! I'm not entirely sure why they're wearing mushrooms on their heads. But it looks cute, hence why its here!

After a 3 hour bullet train ride we arrive in Kyoto! We can't check into our hotel yet, so our Tour Leader takes us on another train to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. It was pretty big, with hundreds and hundreds of red shorii gates that the visitors walked through.

(Apparenty companies buy these shorii gates, and the name of the company features on one side of the arch, with the date it was bought on the other!)

We were told that this shrine was for the God of rice (and sake - as sake is made with rice!), there were a lot of foxes about the place, as you can see here...

Good old Wikipedia informs me that foxes are seen as messengers, and are often seen in Inari shrines. The stone foxes at this shrine held a key in their mouths, which is the key to the rice granary, so there we go! (My apologies at not remembering more about this place!)

After this jaunt we had some lunch, and the girls of the group went to dress up as geisha! We got to choose our own kimono, have our faces made up and have a very heavy wig on our heads!
It was pretty fun but also uncomfortable! You wear a lot of layers and you are tied very tightly into them!
(Get prepared for some strange photos of Geisha Claire!)



So there we go, I feel like I don't look like me, but it was good fun to do anyways!
After this, we removed all the garb (fortunately somebody brought some make-up wipes otherwise the people of Kyoto would have had a shock with us coming down the street!) and we ventured into the Gion district to go geisha hunting!
It was a pretty rainy evening, and the light was fading fast, but we waited at a cross section for the geishas to appear, who were on their way to their evening's work (of entertaining and such). Unfortunately, my camera had way run out of battery at this point, but heres a pic from Google just to give you an idea of what it was like!



Now just imagine that scene a lot darker, busier and rain-ier! And I can tell you, those geishas walk quick! But fortunately, other members of the group got some sneaky pictures of the geisha, so I think we can safely say we "won" at geisha hunting!

Following this, we went for a spot to eat! We sampled something called Japanese Hot Pot. (Again, no photos, but Google at work here).

The dish involves having a small stove in front of you, which you operate yourself. You make your order and are given a big bowl of broth, which sits upon the stove to boil (the broth was quite lemony). During this time you are served with whatever you ordered (in a raw state), such as pork, chicken, fish, veg etc, you then wait for the broth to boil and place the meat/veg into the broth to cook! Once its been cooked you remove to a smaller bowl with chopsticks and consume!
I'm afraid this was the least favourite of the dishes I tried in my time in Japan, but I blame this on the option I chose for myself. I stupidly thought chicken was the safest option, but the chicken was served with all its tendons and fat attached, and that sort of thing makes me feel a bit queasy! But I gave it ago (cutting tendons off a chicken with chopsticks is difficult!) and I did enjoy the parts that didn't make me feel a bit ill - I should of gone for the fish, apparently it was delicious! D'oh! Oh well, maybe next time...

So that was our first day in Kyoto! Our second day involves visiting a rock garden, a golden holiday home, a castle and finally sampling some udon noodles! Wa-hey!

Super Awesome Draught Excluder of Bodacious-ness

Theres my vain attempt at making a rather boring topic more interesting, did it work?

I made a draught excluder. Woah.



Despite it being a pretty boring and sensible thing to make, I did try to "bling" this guy up with some buttons and sequins!

So there we go. A draught excluder. And thats the sort of white-knuckle ride post you can expect in the future from this blog, people! Woo mama!

Before I scuttle off, if anyone is *actually interested* in making a draught excluder for their home, I used a tutorial I found on The Guardian website over HERE. Its pretty quick and easy to make if you decide not to stitch sequins into it! For the stuffing, the tutorial doesn't tell you how much rice/lentils/whatever to use, I used a fair bit, but it was no where near filling the thing out and it was getting quite heavy; so I used some spare cloth and such to bulk it out!

Shall be returning with Japan wafflings very soon!

Japan - Hiroshima (Day 2)

So we're on to Day 2 of Hiroshima, and we got up to a lot! In the morning we met outside an awesome bakery by the train station (I had an incredible cake/custard eclair type thing there, it was epic. You may see a piccy wic in a later blog post). Heres a few photos of the bakery, I even found a Cod Roe french bun (I'm afraid I didn't have the stomach to try it though)!


We then caught the tram to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, which was a moving experience. We were given a tour of the park by a survivor of the World War 2 nuclear bombing (his mother was pregnant with him at the time).

(The A-Dome and a statue which survived the bombing).


We were shown the vast array of paper cranes put together as a memorial for the young girl Sadako Sasaki who died of leukemia when she was 12 years old - due to radiation poisioning from the bomb which dropped 2km from her home. There is a legend in Japan that anyone who folds one thousand paper cranes will be granted a wish by a crane. When Sadako was diagnosed with leukemia (about 10 years after the bomb), she began to make one thousand paper cranes to get her wish granted. Sadako unfortunately passed away in hospital in 1955. I've heard conflicting information that Sadako didn't complete all of the paper cranes before her death and it was her school friends who made the remaining few, but then I've heard Sadako completed the one thousand cranes, and continued to make more.
I think the memorial features Sadako's paper cranes, but also those of others from all over the world - sent by people who were touched by her story.



The path of the park led us to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, which I found really interesting, although there were parts that were upsetting/distressing.

We trammed it back to the train station.

And we caught a local train to a ferry that took us to the tranquil Miyajima Island. Miyajima is most famous for its giant torii gate, and its home to many a shrine. Our tour leader told us that nobody is born or dies on this island, to keep its ritual purity - which is pretty astounding, but there we go! Me and Emma really enjoyed this place, it was a lovely sunny day to visit and the island had deer wandering/sleeping all over the place (although we did have an incident involving a deer and some green tea ice cream which was unnerving)!



Whilst we were here, our tour guide recommended we try age momiji, which is a fried cake in the shape of a maple leaf which you could pick a selection of fillings for, we chose custard, and oh boy, it was tasty!



And we caught the ferry back to Hiroshima.



Obviously I have to end this blog post with dinner, but first some photos of deliciously cute cakes I saw at the train station.



Ok, now dinner! We went to this swanky little place were we got our own little compartment with curtains - which is how I believe every restaurant should be laid out. Too many times have I sat down in a place and the group/couple on the table next to you can practically sit on your knee!
Anyhoos (small rant over), here I had some good old-fashioned gyoza (tasty) and some chicken yakitori (also tasty), I did try to order some chicken gizzard on my yakitori, but the restaurant were all out! (I did eventually get to try some and it was nice, if a bit chewy!)


So there we go! That was our busy and last day in Hiroshima! Next we travel on to Kyoto were we see shrines, rock gardens, golden holiday homes and go on a geisha hunt! Wa-hey!