On our last day in Kyoto, we checked out of the guesthouse and made our way to downtown Kyoto, to the markets. But first, we stopped in at Mos Burger for a late breakfast! Mos Burger is a famous burger restaurant that features very localized tastes in their burgers (mostly seafood oriented). But we mostly stuck with beef:
The burgers were tasty, but very saucy - they advise you to use the wrapper strategically to avoid making a huge mess...
Next, we made our way through the market area.
Our main destination was the Samurai and Ninja Museum with Experience - yes, that is the full name, look it up! The experience starts with a demonstration of Iaido, or traditional Japanese swordplay:
The moves look pretty simple but they assured us that it is very effective and advanced... I tend to believe it since I had a chance to try my hand at Samurai swordsmanship at the Toei Kyoto Studio Park!
Next, a guide gave us a very informative and entertaining tour of the small museum and told us about this history of samurai, including Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who would be a theme on a later day of our trip, as well as ninja, in the context of Japanese society at the time.
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| Introduction to Katana |
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| Samurai armor traditionally included masks, often with facial hair, to disguise younger warriors and, in some cases, female ones! |
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| An introduction to the Japanese Feudal System, where the Shogun had the real power. Ninja were actually from the Farmer class... |
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| A small model of Osaka castle and Toyotomi Hideyoshi - more on those in a later post! |
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| Arquebus like these helped to unite Japan in the middle ages |
After the history tour, we got to try out some ninja skills!
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| First, throwing stars! (Quite difficult!) |
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| Then, blow darts! (I was very, very good at this!) |
Finally, we got to dress up in Samurai armor! Those helmets were really heavy, so the kids opted to not wear them!
After our Samurai and Ninja Experience, we made our way to the Gion area of Kyoto, which is a neighborhood dating back to ancient times and where you can often see Geisha, or at least people dressed up as Geisha.
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| We actually came here on our first visit to Kyoto in 2014! Look how tiny Lukas was back then! |
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| On the bridge to Gion |
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| Lots of snack shops |
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| Yogurt flavored soda is great! |
After touring Gion, we headed back for one more sushi meal at our favorite sushi restaurant, then headed to the train station on the way to the second city destination of our trip - Osaka!
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| Shaved ice at the sushi restaurant! |
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| Osaka is still a bit of an aging city, but it looks very different from Kyoto! |
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| Just a Mazda Miata on the wall... |
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| Very cool shot of the Umeda Sky Building near the Westin where we stayed |
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| Cute tiger slippers courtesy of the Westin! |
Up next, our first day in Osaka!
