Finally gotten up to the final post of the Japan series - just in time for me to start the next series!We spent the remaining days of the trip on a day trip to Kyoto and a crab feast in Osaka -- food galore! Not having much to do left in Osaka, we took a day trip to Kyoto. Although Kyoto is close to Osaka, Kyoto isn't the friendliest city if you're looking to go by on your JR pass alone.
The closest attraction in Kyoto is the Fushimi Inari Gates, just off from Inari station.
Straight outside Inari station, you're greeted with a massive red torii gate, meaning you're on the right track. This area isn't very crowded, so take all the photos!!
I took one with the dog statue...still have no idea what it's carrying in it's mouth. At first sight, I thought it was some sort of gold cucumber.
I'm still going to stick with my original assumption that it's biting on a golden cucumber. If you have any other better guesses, or if you actually know, let me know!
I don't know if it was any special day, but heaps of people turned up in kimonos! Although pretty, walking around on those Japanese shoes seemed too take a lot of effort.
At the shrine, they have the paper tickets that tell you the luck for the year and a place for you to stick all the bad ones on. I have no idea what the guy is doing - is he sleeping, sunbathing or drunk? I'm going to guess drunk.
On the way down, there's a street that sells street snacks like yakitori, sausage and other souvenirs. I stopped for this store, mainly because the street vendor looked like a yakuza. He was slow at cooking, but it was so worth it. There was one guy who was in a huge rush and more or less forced the seller to serve him first. That guy looked so confused and just gave him two random sticks, which I swear were semi-uncooked (serves him right for butting in the line).
The sun was setting as we left Kyoto, meaning that we were just in time for dinner at Osaka!!
The previous night we were in Osaka, we wanted to try out the all-famous Kani Doraku. But they had closed early, so we could only try again.
We went in and got given a private room and ordered the Katsuragawa set (see here), along with a bunch of other stuff which I have no memory of anymore. I also managed to get photos of some of the dishes only.
Crab chawanmushi - very smooth and creamy; the crab flavour is present, but not too strong.
More steamed crab! Bring back memories of scenes in Ouran Host Club - if only it was served in that manner.
Raw crab - very fresh, but the texture was slightly lacking (a bit mushy). Interesting to try though.
Grilled crab - This was my favourite; it had great texture and a deep flavour! Must encore next time.
Crab soup - I don't have much memory of this, except that the cabbage was very delicious.
Crab gratin - Very flavoursome, but a bit too heavy for me. It was like mac 'n' cheese with crab.
Look at that cheesy stretch - it looked so much better in real life...but my camera shutter skills were too slow.
Crab tempura - the coating was so crisp and the flesh was still very bouncy! I can eat endless rounds of this.
Grilled crab and crab paste - this one was so good! I've never had crab paste and the grey thing looked suspicious. But it was so creamy. Get some rice to mix in and voila!
We headed back to the hotel with filled bellies and happy smiles!
The next morning, we just realised that we had only had ramen one (or two) times throughout the duration of our trip in Japan. So we had to have some more ramen - so ramen breakfast it is!
Lucky for us, Ichiran was the closest,just across the road.
I got the regular ramen with an gooey egg. The highlight of the meal was the egg, I mean it, look:
It comes with it's own BLING!!! 100% unedited natural bling. C'mon, you have to give Japan credit for that.
See you on my next adventure!~
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