Japan

Day 8 was spent in Kyoto city. We got up at 9am and wandered towards the imperial palace with the aim of finding somewhere for breakfast on route. Another hot day so we wanted to get a lot done before the heat came on strong. Eventually after trying a few options we found this little cafe down a random side street and had a nice bacon and egg crepe each with a coffee! Place was so full we had to queue outside for 15 mins in the sun! (Lots of people queue outside the best places to eat in Japan do not abnormal).

After breakfast we toured the imperial palace which was free. Very impressive and nice Japanese gardens which were as you can expect immaculately maintained. There was a golden retriever meet up going on and Sinead went nuts for when they all posed for a photo. We noticed since we arrived we hadn’t seen one bit of litter or graffiti and everything seems groomed! One of the issues is there are no bins anywhere so you end up holding onto rubbish for half a day. We found most bins are located inside supermarkets on the back section.

After we routed the palace we walked an hour back into the centre to Nintendo centre (Nintendo also Japanese). The place was mobbed with overpriced toys and Nintendo stuff but we did get a photo on the rooftop with Mario. Was also weird to see a whole floor for British stuff the Japanese were going nuts for. There was fresh sausages rolls fish and chips and royal family memorabilia with British music blaring!

After Nintendo we wondered into the market again because was so good yesterday and goes on for miles. Today we had some octopus on a stick and had some nice sushi with salmon and I tried sea urchin for the first time (not a huge fan). I decided to splash out (1200 yen so about £8) and get some Wagyu on a stick and we shared some gyoza. We also stopped off and got some amazing matcha ice team which was so ascetically pleasing n on how they served it. Mine looked like a tennis ball it was so perfectly spherical which sums up Japan. they’re nuts for matcha here and there was 9 matcha flavours to choose from.

We walked around Kyoto some more after food and went to another 2 shrines to see some amazing temples. Main part of Kyoto was packed but the side streets were quieter. We worked out we’d done over 160k steps in the last 5 days. My legs are gone and feet throbbing most nights so started to soak in hot water which has helped. Need better footwear as no idea how the Camino is possible being on your feet all day!

Dinner we stopped at one of these self service BBQ places and got an assortment of meat and fish with some veg. Wasn’t as good as last night though but decent nonetheless! After we stopped by and had a beer at a craft beer place (plum beer which was decent) and stopped off to buy a can of Sapporo (beer) to share on our balcony before bed!Weiterlesen