Fall, in love with Japan 2013 - part 4

So after procrastinating for a whole year, I decided to continue with blogging about my 2013 trip to Japan with KK. LOL....here goes!

Day 4 - we spent the entire day in Kyoto. It was already an interesting start when we had to get ready in the morning, sharing bathrooms and sink space with other lodgers. I think it was also rare that we could stand side by side doing our makeup, while complaining what a hassle it was.

in front of our ryokan in Kyoto.

We decided to go to Nijo Castle first thing, but if I remembered correctly, we really didn't have our whole days planned. I'm guessing we chose to go there because we felt like we needed to visit a castle, and that it's one of those tourist attractions that opens quite early. So off we went. It was much more convenient to utilize the bus system than subway/trains in Kyoto, which was what we did.

we are ready!

one of the first pictures I took of Nijo Castle.

We paid for entrance fee and went inside, the castle wasn't that big really. We got to see what a Shogun's place looked like, and they had little signs along the way, that explained what each room was for and who the manniquins were. Of course, it was one of those place where we had to take our shoes off at the entrance, and I was wearing my Nara edition Kapibara-san socks that I got the previous day (no shame of course). There were a lot of empty rooms with tatami, but the paper doors had different designs to it. Pictures were not allowed inside so, nothing to show trolololol.

I'm a proud sock owner. LOL.

kind of creepy manniquins inside.

We took a walk around the whole castle. It was a nice walk but nothing too eventful happened. I was really happy that I had a chance to wear my new shades though hahahaha! We took a break at the snack/souvenir area. Since we had no idea where to go next, we took out all our Kyoto pamphlets and maps to see where to go next. I also bought some postcards at the souvenir shop so I could stamp them with the Nijo Castle stamps that tourists could use for free.

Random snaps I took inside the Castle area:

Afterwards, we just headed in the direction of our next destination, and we were looking for a place to grab some lunch on the way. We ended up at the underground shopping street and we had curry at a random curry restaurant. I really liked picking places randomly sometimes because I like being spontaneous sometimes.

Us at the snack bar in Nijo Castle planning where to go next.

Japanese curry for lunch!

After walking around some more, we went to Yojiya Cafe for some green tea drinks/dessert. Yojiya is a brand from Kyoto and lots of people buy their products (beauty/skin care related things) as souvenirs from Kyoto. Naturally, we had to visit their cafe!

green tea latte with Yojiya logo

perks of having a travel buddy - someone to take pictures for you with your food!

chocolate truffle with Yuzu filling ❤❤❤

taking an evening stroll in Gion.

of course we shopped at Yojiya and got some goodies!

We went back to our Ryokan to put down our stuff and freshen up, then we went to search for the light up at the Kiyomizu Dera! Our host told us that it was being lit up for a limited time in honour of breast cancer (I think).

On our way!

It was so pretty!

The place was actually closed at night, but there were still people like us, who came all the way to the front door to take pictures!

Since we weren't feeling too hungry, we just went to a convenient store and grabbed some Oden to eat back at our Ryokan.

found random phone box so we decided to be idiots. 

dinner!

before dinner selfie!

KK drunk after 2 sips of "cocktail" LOL.

Pretty eventful day I'd say!