Kyoto: Nara
This is the tenth recap for LOHOjapan, my 3 week trip to Japan with my boyfriend. After exploring Osaka, we head off to visit the quaint and peaceful town of Nara.
Gion
Lunch: A happy pancake
We sleep in and have an early lunch at a cafe called A Happy Pancake. It is only a 5 minute walk from the Nishiki Market.
A Happy Pancake is a cafe specializing in fluffy Japanese pancakes! They have really high ratings and over 800 reviews. Needless to say, we have to wait in line to eat here because we did not arrive before their opening time. We wait 1 hour to be seated and have to wait another 20-40 minutes for our pancakes to be served.
I order the roasted matcha pancakes ($15 USD). I think I ordered this because the last roasted matcha dessert I tried at Maccha House was amazing. The pancakes are suuuuper fluffy and almost dissolve into the gross air that is inside my mouth. It kind of has an “eggy” taste, which I like a lot. The roasted matcha sauce was sweet and warm without being overwhelming.
My boyfriend orders a savoury pancake – the pancake & mushroom cheese omelette ($10). It comes with a small salad. Unlike my order, which took 20 minutes, his took 40 minutes to arrive and in general, we are not too satisfied with this pancake.
The sweet pancakes have a fluffier and softer taste, but the savoury pancake feels almost grainy. They use a different batter to make it “saltier”. It still isn’t very salty or flavourful without any sauce or cream, so it is a strange texture – like little fine bits of sand in what is supposed to be a cloud. The omelette and salad is pretty average.
One reason why it takes so long to receive your order is because they care a lot about how they make their pancakes. They only start kneading the pancake dough after you order and then they still have to bake it (which takes 20 minutes already).
Things to do: Shop at a sex store
Just another reasonable thing to do after you eat some fluffy pancakes lol.
As we are leaving the cafe, we pass by an anime store selling One Piece T-shirts. My boyfriend is interested so we go inside. We realize after that only the first 2 floors sell anime goods. The rest of the higher floors sell couple items.
What are couple items? I was thinking matching T-shirts, but I am very wrong. The next 5 floors sell sex toys and other types of fetish-related items. I have pictures but I do not want to share…
I will share this picture because this is very very PG compared to all the other things my eyes have been scarred with after entering this store. In the picture above, we have purchased around 12 boobs. They are supposed to be wrist pads for when you use your mouse. They are around $6-8 USD depending on the size and we basically buy all of the ones they have in stock. If you received one of these from me as your souvenir, please enjoy them.
So what else is there beside for these (kinda cute) boobs? Well there is a whole section of flesh lights. All the boxes have a cute anime girl or a cute real girl plastered on the packaging, but they also show you what is inside the box (in a display) and they all look kind of like plastic casseroles. Kinda gross.
They have another section of vibrators and fake penis things. And they even have a separate corner for sex dolls. They are displayed in giant glass boxes and are very expensive.
So that is that.
Nara
From Gion, it takes 1 hour to take a local train to Nara. We basically arrive 1 hour before sunset and we rush to accomplish the two things on our itinerary: visit the Tōdai-ji temple and feed deers at Nara Park.
Things to do: Todai-ji temple
Todai-ji temple closes at 5pm and we enter 30 minutes before their closing time. Luckily because of this, the temple is relatively empty and the sunset gives the entire place a beautiful glow.
Todai-ji temple is huge. It is way bigger than Meiji shrine, the shrine we visited in Shibuya. The sheer size of it makes it feel majestic. There is a giant Buddha inside as well for you to marvel at.
Unlike the time we got fooled into purchasing a random ass poem for $1, we finally purchase our fortunes! We select a stick from the staff that has a number written on it and they give us a piece of paper with our fortune reading. I get good luck and my boyfriend gets best luck (argh!). These fortunes are valid for a year.
We buy a lot of charms from this temple as they are again, prettier than the ones sold at Meiji shrine. If you are wondering, we select a lot of them for souvenirs – luck with wealth and health are the main ones we buy. We also stop to purchase some additional chopsticks from the souvenir stands inside the temple.
Things to do: Feed deers in Nara Park
Ahh, the iconic deers. Nara Park is just a park except there’s a shit ton of deers that get to frolick around and live there. This attracts tourists to come and spend time feeding these deers.
PSA: It’s bad to actually feed these deers because they are now accustomed to eating whatever people give them and some people are stupid so they actually end up eating a lot of garbage. But this is my first time here so I purchase some deer cookies for $5.
Once those deers see you have these cookies – oh boy! They will follow you and snip at your clothes and bags. Enjoy this montage of me realizing this too late:
The deers are all very cute and do not seem that dangerous, although there are some alpha ones who steer clear of tourists in general. I find that most tourists overfeed the baby deers.
A fun fact is that these deers know how to bow! If you bow to them several times before feeding them, they will bow back. Super cute!
Gion
Dinner: Gion Yuki
We travel back to Gion for dinner because there is an izakaya we want to try. An izakaya is a Japanese pub.
Again, we want to go to Gion Yuki because there are many positive reviews and as with good reviews, there is always a line. We wait around 40 minutes to get 2 seats. Side story: We met and sat down next to an Italian lady who is a F1 driver!
No prices listed because I forgot how much everything cost. We just order whatever we want to eat. Also their menu changes a lot.
Tamagoyaki with cod roe
My boyfriend is very excited about this cod roe tamagoyaki. Tamagoyaki is basically rolled egg and in this case, it is filled with fish eggs inside.
I find this dish a little too salty and the egg roe is kind of spicy (?). It is a very savoury and interesting dish.
Octopus karaage
This is amazing and from now on I will always believe in lightly frying octopus. It is not deep fried with thick batter, but instead very lightly fried. The octopus is still chewy and fresh inside and there’s no little bits of batter falling off or large crunch. It is very delectable! It is very similar to the octopus karaage we had at an izakaya in Shibuya.
Giant oysters
Can’t pass on these giant oysters again. While they are not as big as the one we ate at the Tsukiji Fish Market, these are still pretty huge. Again, very creamy.
Prawn tempura
This is pretty basic but I was craving them so we order it anyways. Nothing exceptional about the texture (still very yummy!). Size is above average.
Chicken karaage
Very delicious chicken karaage. I don’t think I have had bad chicken karaage yet in Japan at all. How come every place is so good at making them??
Big chunks of chicken that are still juicy inside. The karaage is fried and seasoned well.
3 Kinds of grilled fish
They explain to us what fish they use but we do not remember so I’m sorry. They are all delicious though. Even though they are grilled, it still tastes very fresh and natural. There is also no fish bones to worry about.
Grilled salmon ochazuke
We end off the night by trying ochazuke. Ochazuke is a type of dish that combines rice in tea. In this dish, they simply add on a grilled piece of salmon on top.
This is very interesting because it is new to us. The grilled salmon tastes similar to the 3 grilled fish from earlier. The rice is cooked so it’s not a congee texture. The tea is warm and makes it easy for the rice to go straight down your throat. It’s a very homey-style dish.
Things to do: Win the Family Mart lottery lol
As we are walking back to our hotel, we give the Family Mart lottery another try. What is the Family Mart lottery, you ask?
Family Mart is a chain of convenience stores, similar to 711. Again, their food is just as good as Japan’s 711 or the other direct competitor, Lawson’s. What 711 and Lawson’s does not have however, is a One Piece lottery.
Of course, all these convenience stores also sell normal lottery tickets where you can win money, but what my boyfriend is interested in is winning a One Piece figurine.
How the lottery works:
- You buy a lottery ticket for around $6-7 USD.
- The lottery ticket will say a prize letter. Example, “A” is the best prize possible – a big figurine of Luffy (main character from One Piece). “B” might be a big figurine of a secondary character, etc. The prizes range from A to G. The lower-end prizes include things like plates, cups and folders.
- The convenience store staff will watch you open your ticket and stick it on a wall to indicate how many prizes have been claimed.
- You take your prize from the shelf and leave.
So this Family Mart is really close to our hotel and we’ve checked it out a couple of times before but this special night, we see there is only 17 prizes left… one of them is the A prize – Luffy figurine.
My boyfriend purchases the remaining 17 tickets and open all them. We still do not see the “A” ticket. We ask the staff if it is rigged because what the fuck we bought all the remaining tickets.
The staff is unsure of what to do until her manager informs her that we automatically take the A prize and that there should have been an A ticket in the box (ummm ok still sketchy).
We are very excited and leave with 1 figurine, 4 folders, 6 cups and 6 plates lol. Apparently the re-sale value of these items are already worth more than $6 (except for the folders), so my boyfriend is very pleased with the value of items he has won from this lottery.
Final thoughts on day ten
The half-day itinerary is really working for us (my feet, specifically). I really wished my feet could have handled exploring Nara all day, but my feet are still dead every night by the time we return to our hotel.
Nara feels very rustic and peaceful, almost like a small town vibe compared to all the places we’ve visited so far. There are probably a lot more local restaurants to check out, but as a first-timer I am pleased with just hitting off the 2 things on our list.
Both the temple and Nara Park are within walking distance of Nara Station. In fact, you can still see and feed deers up to the entrance of the temple.
The temple is a must-go. Absolutely stunning structure.
Feeding the deers is fun for any age and it’s really nice to be in such close proximity to these animals. You don’t even need to be feeding them, you could just pet them and sit with them.
If you do not want to purchase the deer cookies, you can also feed them leaves. They also eat them but you need to jump and grab leaves that are higher up in the trees. We noticed that they do not eat the leaves on lower branches or the ground.
These deers do poop a lot though. There is basically poop everywhere. Be careful and do not wear sandals.
Stay tuned for my next post and follow along with the other recaps!
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Sincerely, Loewe
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