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!
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