Day 4: Kyoto (Part 1-Kimono Rental)

It’s the day which I could finally put my make up skills learnt over the course of 1 week into good use! Yes, we went to Kyoto and decided to try wearing Kimono there.

Thanks to Ruby who researched and planned out the schedule beforehand and we bought the Keihan Railway Kyoto-Osaka Sightseeing 1 Day pass for 800 yen from the train station. That was the first time I was really glad that Ruby can converse so well in Japanese and we had absolutely no trouble buying and understanding the usage of the passes thanks to her.

We reached Fushimi Inari station (Kyoto) at around 10.30am and I was fascinated by the interior design and external architecture of the railway station. It’s a ground level open air station with the left and right platforms separated by railway tracks in the middle. The orange pillars and the station name signboard overhead add to the overall traditional Japanese feel. As we exit the station, we were greeting by the sounding of the chimes, signaling that the next train was approaching the station. On our left, the people posing for photos on the railway quickly moved out of the track as the crossing gates lowered down slowly. On our right was where our Kimono rental shop, Aiwafuku , was located and we decided that we should head straight to the shop to rent our kimono.

We were technically 20 mins early as our reservation timing was 11am but the shop attendants kindly let us in. We were greeted warmly by a young Mandarin speaking Taiwanese lady and she kindly explained to us about the kimono rental details. We took off our shoes and were each given a big bag, with a number tagged to it, that was meant to hold our clothes and other personal belongings. We were then led into a room full of kimono hang right out in front of us. There were all sorts of colours and designs that all 3 of us females didn’t know where to start choosing. I initially thought of how my mum always tells me that I look good in pink colour clothes and hence decided to go for those in pink to narrow my choices. I managed to pick out a pink colour kimono with flowery patterns on it but a shop attendant suggested a pale yellowish one with Ajisai flowers design. She mentioned that it’s currently Japan’s rainy season (Ajisai is Japanese rainy season’s flower) and wearing a kimono with Ajisai flowers design was a good idea to remember the season we came to Japan when we looked back at the photos of this trip in the future. As someone who’s quite nostalgic, I agreed to what she said and chose that design eventually. If you think that that’s the end of the choosing process, you’re very wrong! That’s actually just step 1 of the many other choices to make. With the kimono that I chose hang on on her arms, I was soon led to the corner of the room by the same shop attendant to choose the Obi, a sash worn around my waist as part of the kimono outfit. This time round I gave in to my favourite colour blue and was soon given a choice between a dark blue obi and a light blue obi with grey colour on its flipped side. I was again convinced by the shop attendant that the light blue one would look better as they would fold the obi to show the flipped side and it’s a nice idea to show the light blue and grey contrasting colours. After the 3 of us girls finished with the choosing of our kimono and obi, we were then led upstairs to change into the outfit and also get our hair styled.

To answer the question that probably some of you have: Do we have to take out our undergarments? The answer is no. We were given an inner lining to wear before putting on the kimono to avoid dirtying the outfit. We were then given a choice from a wide variety of hairstyles (for long hair) and thankfully for short hair there’s only two kinds: a sideway braiding or a bunch of hair tied up in a mini bun which kind of looked weird to me in the sample pic on the brochure. I went with the braided hairstyle and bam! With a purple flower(again, chosen from a wide array of choices) on the side, I was transformed. My hair was styled so skillfully and I was staring at a beautiful sweet young lady in front of the mirror within minutes. The shop attendants were all saying “Kawaii” and that’s the first time I actually agreed and deemed that the adjective “cute” was fitting on myself.

After the hair was done, I then proceeded to stand in front of a full body length mirror where the shop attendant helped me to wear the kimono outfit and holy, god knows how many times she actually tied layers of towels, strings, clothes and blades around my waist area before I actually put on the kimono and obi. I counted 4/5 layers on myself and I was told to choose between a simple beaded design or a sophisticated flowery design of the accessory around my obi. Once again I chose a blue flower, this time going with my favourite dark blue colour. The outfit was finally done but that’s not the end. We had to choose a small hand carry bag to bring along our valuables. After all the trouble of choosing, we were finally led down to the first floor where Jeremy was long done with his outfit. According to him, we took around 30-45 mins but we were just bombarded with choices and choices that we were simply not aware of the passing of time. So sad that he only had a few choices but oh well, that’s not exactly a bad thing right? Before we head out to the streets, we made our last choice of choosing the Geta, a pair of sandals that goes with the kimono. By now, we were all used to choosing and were all glad that it’s all done.

Some additional footage:

It took us some time (actually not much effort) to convince Jeremy to also join in when we were making our reservation beforehand. Wearing a kimono wasn’t that uncomfortable as I thought it would be and I will strongly encourage anyone who’s visiting Japan to try it out. I strongly recommend Aiwafuku too, their service was great and I really enjoyed the experience!

Day 3: America-Mura (American Village)

Finally, we met up with Ruby! We made our way from Round One to America-Mura. It is a 10 minutes walk from Osaka-Namba Station. America-Mura is a shopping district that is popular amongst the youngsters. There are several second hand shops and record stores.

The clothes sold in the second-hand shops are relatively cheaper than those sold in department stores and major brands such as H&M and Uniqlo. The average price range starts from SGD $10 for non branded ones. There were many branded second hand items there which were really cheaper (half the original price) and were in good condition. However, design wise, many of them were not really want Singapore youngsters usually wear.

As someone who grew up in Singapore, seeing a record store was a relatively rare sight, not to mention visiting one physically. With the advent of technology, buying and collecting physical CDs has became less common. I doubt half of the people I interact with actually have a CD player that they still use at home though they may still have some old CDs lying somewhere in the storeroom. Ruby wanted to find some song tracks so we visited a few stores, one of which was KING KONG. As someone who grew up listening to songs from Youtube, I couldn’t really relate to any record collecting experience which was actually kind of sad. But nonetheless, it’s a nice experience to walk around a record store in Japan.

Afterwards, we went to eat ice-dogs as dessert. It’s made with deep fried hot dog bun with ice cream as filling. It had a unique taste and it served its purpose as a nice dessert.

We visited many clothing stores and they had many trendy clothes but were all pretty expensive (2000 yen and above). We saw a few 300yen shops that were similar to how Daiso works. It kind of shocked me how they even sell shirts and shorts for 300 yen. However I really doubt that the quality was good…

We passed by Alice on Wednesday. It’s a shop selling items related to Alice in the Wonderland and the entrance was really small and short, located at the end of the road. The items sold include accessories, bags, keychains, food and goodies, etc with relatively exquisite designs. The price for that quality and design was pretty alright. I bought a necklace for around SGD $12, inclusive of tax.

We also visited some manga shops. There were a wide variety of genres, from popular manga to those with mature content to doujinshi (fan drawn works). Nicole and I were getting bored so we took some nice photos in between shelves.

It’s finally dinner time and Ruby brought us to a Japanese restaurant with really good and okay priced food. I ordered a don with sashimi, salmon roe, a soft boiled egg and some seaweed. There was a choice between different toppings. I tried the soup of both Nicole’s and Jeremy’s ramen and both were quite favourful but I preferred Nicole’s more. Jeremy’s soup reminded me of Taiwan’s 沙茶酱 taste which was not bad but was a bit too much for me.

After dinner, we we went to some drug stores but decided that we should do the shopping on the last few days instead. To be honest, I was a bit agitated that evening as it was the first time we did not go according to plan. I wanted to shop for clothes but it near the closing time for most clothing stores so we had to give up on the plan for shopping before going to Kyoto and USJ. Luckily I actually bought some clothes beforehand and could wear those clothes instead. I actually was worried that I would not have the time to shop for clothes and items from the drug stores (I had tons of them to buy). Oh well, all turned out fine and maybe I should have not insisted on going to the drug store that night and ended up putting all items back in the end.

Some additional footages:

It’s the first night we bought alcohol and had a night session with Ruby. We bought some Suntory fruit beer and they were actually pretty nice! As someone who is rather hypersensitive to alcohol, I was pretty surprised that I managed to drink half a can and felt no intense headache. I can’t really recall what we talked about that night but I knew I had a great time.

Day 3: Kuromon Market + Round 1

It’s the third day in Japan and for some reason, I still woke up earlier than I was supposed to. I ate a burnt caramel pudding for breakfast and it was absolutely amazing! I’d always love pudding and Japanese puddings are known to be delicious. The top layer of slightly burnt caramel added its sweetness to the soft pudding that melts in your mouth. It’s the most perfect after meal dessert, but I ate it in the morning.

We made our way to Kuromon Market (exit 10 from Nipponbashi station) at around 9.30am and there were quite little people as not all stores were open at that timing.

Kuromon Market early on a Monday morning

Kuromon Market is a sheltered food district with many fresh and delicious seafood, fruits, Kobe beef, etc and some drug stores. It is usually crowded with people in the afternoon so do go in the late morning to avoid the crowd. The opening hours are from 9.00am to 5.30pm. I actually was looking forward to visiting the market before the trip and prepared to spend some money on the food. Nicole led us through the entire market and we tried our first dish: Kobe beef. Yes you don’t need to travel to Kobe for Kobe beef.

Kobe beef- well known to be the best beef but extremely expensive

There were many types of beef to choose from and I didn’t know which one was the one that was said to ‘melt in your mouth’. I ordered one that costed 3000 yen while Jeremy ordered one which costed 2690 yen. We each received a small card that certified us as people who have tried Kobe beef. The beef that I ordered was extremely juicy and tender. It was soft and almost melted in my mouth. They gave us some salt and pepper and some sauce to go with the beef. I would say that it wasn’t up to my expectation but I wouldn’t deny that it was tasty.

Jeremy’s beef was a bit harder and tasted similar to what I have eaten in Taiwan. I would say the beansprouts were absolutely trash

On our way to try our next dish, I came across the well known soymilk. It’s unsweetened and there were many degree of thickness to choose from. I’m regretting my choice right now because I chose a small bottle (150 yen) with normal thickness which tasted like those I drank in Taiwan… Nothing special for me. If you are a fan of unsweetened soymilk, make sure to buy the thicker ones though they costed a bit more expensive than the usual ones you see in Singapore.

We then made our way to the must-try food in Osaka: Takoyaki. Unlike the hard ones in Singapore, the Takoyaki in Japan is crispy on the outside and really soft inside. It is big in size and the octopus in every ball is a huge piece. It’s extremely hot and it’s impossible to poke it up and put it inside your mouth with chopsticks/tooth pick because 1) It is too soft 2) It is too hot. The mayonnaise that came with it was perfect and we had a great time savoring the real taste of what Takoyaki should have been.

We were all full after eating the Takoyaki as we made our way to try some desserts. However, we came across some sashimi and Nicole and I bought salmon sashimi to try. It was just nice when both of us love salmon the most. Though I couldn’t really tell good and bad sashimi apart, I could tell that it’s fresh and the the wasabi complement well with the raw fish.

Much thanks to Nicole’s sharp eyes, she spotted a stall selling Genmaicha. It is a traditional Japanese brown rice green tea and has a fragrant smell with mild rice taste as you drink the tea. I initially only wanted to buy 1 packet for my mother but the kind aunty in the shop let us try the tea and all 3 of us agreed that it’s really nice so I bought 2 packets in the end. Surprisingly when Jeremy asked whether we could remember the Tea drinking steps taught in year 2, I could remember all the steps.

My mother actually liked it a lot. Duh, I bought the 2nd grade.

After some tea tasting, we went to buy some ice cream. The ice cream in Japanese has a thick milky taste and it’s really rich in flavour. Meanwhile Jeremy bought fruit juice (pineapple and some other fruits) which both Nicole and Jeremy agreed that it was really good. As someone who can’t appreciate sour taste, I can’t comment much other than it being really fruity.

We initially wanted to spend more time in the market before Ruby’s arrival but I guess we were all too full to continue on the food hunting. We left Kuromon Market and stumbled across an underground shopping district called Round 1. Nicole and I spent some time in the shops as it was really big while Jeremy discovered an arcade and 3 of us went to the arcade for some fun. Well, except that I am not a fan of the arcade.

We saw some rhythm games and had some fun. Jeremy actually went for a dancing machine and he was actually quite good at it, both Nicole and I agreed on that. But since my friends enjoyed their time in the arcade, it’s not a bad experience going there though I would really rather spend my time in the other shops instead.

That’s when Ruby arrived in a cute cats shirt and 4 of us finally united! 🙂

Some additional footage: Before we made our way to the Takoyaki stall, Jeremy actually spotted a stall selling whale meat and he decided that it was an amazing idea to try some whale meat. Nicole and I looked at him and then at each other disapprovingly. She told me “I can’t believe that he actually wanted to try whale meat. He’s standard just drop all the way down there.” I kind of agree with all those protecting animal stuff but honestly I don’t actually care much about whether you try whale meat or shark fins… Just not eat them like some staple food. Jeremy actually asked us whether we were curious about it. Honestly I would be but not whale meat. I’m more curious about sea urchins and puffer fish. They were said to be the must-try seafood in Kuromon market but I was just too full to try them. Big regrets.

Day 2: Umeda

After heading back from Nara, we had a good rest on the train before we made our way to Umeda. The place is known for its department stores, ranging from clothing stores to electronics to food and all sorts of things… Well, it’s basically a huge shopping district with many high rise shopping malls.

Being an avid astronomy lover, I definitely wanted to visit this telescope shop called Kyoei in Umeda. I wanted to be how poisonous it could be. However, I decided against the idea as it was definitely pointless to make a visit just to see a closed shop and take a picture of it (yes, it’s closed on Sunday and we went Umeda on Sunday). However, we managed to pass by this whole row of telescopes on display in Yodobashi Camera, one of the biggest electronics department store in Umeda.

We quickly made our way to Uniqlo and GU for some shopping spree and that was when my dear friends decided that it was an amazing idea to grab some limited edition shirts from Japan and sell them on Carousell to make some pocket money. I’m not against that idea, in fact I was definitely impressed by that business mindset of theirs. However, I certainly do want to enjoy my holiday instead of constantly replying to potential buyers online.

One of the most memorable experience there was actually their fitting rooms. Japan made a point to make their customers take off their shoes before entering the fitting rooms and they gave out this face cover to cover your head so that you don’t dirty the clothing while trying them on. They even have shop attendants holding on to cleaning equipment and made sure the fitting room is clean before the next customer proceeds to try their clothes.

Face cover to cover your head while changing

After we were done with shopping, we went to eat Shake Shack. It was my first time trying it, despite Singapore having a branch in Jewel Changi. Unlike the long queue in Singapore, this particular branch in Umeda has literally no queue during off peak period. We waited for 5 mins before we got to order our food and finding seats wasn’t that difficult at all. We ordered some burgers with fries and milkshakes. I particularly liked their burgers as the bun was toasted with butter and the beef was very tender and juicy, unlike those in MacDonald. The milkshake was great too, creamy and smooth. However, it’s too sweet for my liking. There are many flavours to choose from: Chocolate, Vanilla, Strawberry, Caramel, Black and White, Black Sesame, Coffee, etc. We wanted to order Black Sesame (since it is Japan’s specialty) at first but the person taking our order gave us Black and White instead. It’s actually just cookies and cream, by the taste of it.

Shake Shack- Burgers, fries and Vanilla Milkshake

Trying to take a shot for Ruby 😉 and them talking about girl guides and army…

The day ended with us watching Disney cartoons in our room, while eating the not-so-nice Matcha flavoured marshmallows.

Day 2: Nara

It took me some time to get ready for the day, especially when I was my first time trying a full on make up by myself in the morning. I honestly did not expect to take that long but I finally understood why people always say girls take forever to get ready before they go out… Now I am extremely guilty for falling into the category myself too. I could sense that Jeremy was mildly tilted when he walked into the room of 2 girls putting on their make up in the morning and I was a bit annoyed when he actually commented on how my eyes don’t require any make up (not so sure whether that’s a compliment or saying I was doing something redundant, excuse me can’t you say something nicer?).

One way to get from Nipponbashi was to take Kintetsu Nara line from Kintestu Nipponbashi to Kintetsu Nara station. The entire train ride took around 40 mins. Thanks to my prior experience of taking High Speed Rail in Taiwan, I managed to realise that the seats on the train were rotatable(after double confirming that with Nicole) and actually shocked Jeremy(more of the direction actually) when I rotated his seat so that we could face one another. Thanks to Nicole, we managed to get the 1 Day bus pass in Nara (500 yen for adults) and we set off to our first destination: Nara Park.

Nara is known for the deer and they bite and eat every loose item. We were warned by Nicole beforehand but Jeremy’s tissue packet still got stolen by a deer and one almost got my DSLR lens cap. The deer there love food and they flock towards anyone who bought the deer biscuits sold there. It was said that if you were holding on to food and you bow to the deer, they will bow back at you.

This one wanted my camera lens cap

A fawn and its mother

There were tons of shit on the ground as we made our way to Todaiji Temple. It has amazing Buddha sculptures in the halls but we did not enter the main hall but took photos outside. The entrance fee is 500 yen.

The view from outside was equally breathtaking

Amazing wefie

We then walked around and made our way to Kasuga Grand Shrine, a UNESCO World Heritage site. We passed by many stone lanterns and stone sculptures.

It took me some time to balance… I was great at balancing but why couldnt I do that there?

Along the stairs to Kasuga Grand Shrine and hey this photo spot was discovered by me!

After that we decided to take the bus to Naramachi, a quiet district with old shop houses. It was a nice change of scenery, from a place crowded with tourists to a place with little people. Or perhaps it was Sunday that’s why it was kinda dead.

After walking for around 20 mins or so, we decided to U-turn back and take the bus to Higashimuki Shopping Street and we ate the best ramen for lunch at Tenkaippin restuarant. We ordered a bowl of ramen each for 850 yen with extra meat. There’s a choice between thick soup base, normal soup base and half-half and I believe that they are all pretty good. Honestly, I really like the soup, much more than Ichiran Ramen. The meat wise were really thin and soft, not too dry too. The noodles were not too hard nor soft, extremely delicious.

Ramen at Tenkaippin for 850 yen, I feel that half half is just nice

After being extremely satisfied with lunch, we headed back to Umeda, Osaka(which will be continued in my next post).

Some additional footage: If there’s anywhere which I could fit the description of sunlight shinning through the curtains at the bedside, it’s my hotel room. I was woken up by the unusually bright light at and I actually thought that both Nicole’s and my alarms did not go off at 7am. It was only when I looked at the time on my phone that I realised that it was only 5.30am. Then I recalled that we were in Japan and sunrise is pretty early. That was when Jeremy was awake too and he asked whether I wanted to go down and buy breakfast together. I contemplated the option of going for a morning walk and thought why not? You see, I was literally still lying on my bed but I kinda missed the times when we walked home together back in lower secondary days. So we went to 7-11 and that’s when I realised that Jeremy’s sense of direction wasn’t that bad and was in fact quite good (and truly wondered what happened during that time in Parkway Parade when we got lost when tasked to buy cinema tickets… ). And an amazing thing happened! Apparently I got to try my luck at some lucky draw and being someone who kind of didn’t really read what’s on the description of the hole I put my hand in (and it’s my favourite colour aka blue, so can’t blame me right?), I actually went for the alcohol and cigarettes hole… But much thanks to Jeremy who is much more thick skin than I am, he managed to stop the shop keeper in time and I went for another draw, this time the normal products. That’s how we got Nicole her coffee milk as breakfast drink.

Day 1: Kansai International Airport to Sarasa Hotel Dotonbori

After the near 7hrs flight from Singapore to Japan, we arrived at Kansai International Airport at around 6.30pm Japan time (1hr ahead of Singapore’s timezone). Soon after touch down, Jeremy was hopping up and down excitedly as we made our way out of the plane, saying that we were finally in Japan. Nicole and I tried to shush him because he was behaving like a little kid and I almost wanted to hide my face and pretend that I had absolutely no association with that overly excited teenager right in front of me as we passed by the cabin crew thanking us for the taking the flight and welcoming us to Japan. With that being said, in actual fact, I was also beaming with excitement because we were finally in Japan. The airport was relatively easy to navigate around, with passengers having to take the light rail train to the immigration clearance area. We spent approximately 30-45 mins in the airport before making our way to our hotel. We bought the Icoca Card at the ticket machine and boarded the Nankai Line Airport Express. One way to get to our hotel is to alight at Tengachaya Station and transfer to Osaka Metro Sakaisuji Line. The train will stop at Nipponbashi Station and the hotel is just a 10-15 mins walk from exit 6. The entire trip took around 1hr and costed around 1660 yen.

Typical passport shot

Excited for the trip-before takeoff on Scoot

Our hotel is Sarasa Hotel Dotonbori. It’s a relatively new hotel. The rooms were cozy and not too small. The in room facilities were great (TV, water boiler, hairdryer, toiletries, towels, aircon with controller, bath robes, slippers, a small fridge, bath tub) with 4 USB plugs and 6 power sockets. The staff at the counter were fluent in English and were approachable.

Sneak view of our room- Sarasa Hotel Dotonbori

The location of our hotel is within 15 mins walking distance to most major attractions in Osaka (Kuromon Market, Namba, Dotonbori, Shinsaibashi) and there are convenience stores(Family Mart, Lawson and 7-11) located within 5 mins walking distance.

Our dinner were Soba, Karaage Chicken with rice and Beef Cup noodles from Family Mart. They were delicious, much better than any Japanese food sold in Singapore, and cheap. The Soba sauce did not lose its taste after the first few dips, unlike those in Singapore. The beef cup noodles’ soup did not taste anything like MSG and actually tasted like beef soup. There were small pieces of beef inside and the noodles were moderately chewy and has the taste of beef after adding in the seasoning. I should have filmed the reaction of Nicole and I eating the first mouth of the noodles. We agreed that it was the best cup noodles we had in our life. For drinks, I got myself a packet of Brown Sugar Soymilk and I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes brown sugar and does not want it to be too sweet, without much of the soymilk taste (that was probably the best drink I drank throughout the trip). Another drink I would recommend was Lipton Ice Tea, which Jeremy bought an entire carton from Family Mart. No doubt I was judging him because I absolutely hated Lipton’s Iced Lemon Tea as it always had this over brewed tea taste and I am not the type who would get an entire carton of drink overseas because HEY I WANT TO TRY ALL SORTS OF DRINKS RATHER THAN STICKING TO ONE PARTICULAR TYPE THROUGHOUT THE TRIP. However it was also because of Jeremy saying that it was nice so I was being quite curious (while still dubious) and decided to try just one mouth of it(No harm right? Since he said feel free to drink it when he stored it in our fridge). And that was the best decision I had ever made. I had no idea how and why Japan’s Lipton Iced tea can taste absolutely refreshing unlike the Singapore’s version. Food is definitely heaven in Japan and the last thing anyone would want to do is to underestimate the tastiness of the food from Japan’s convenience stores.

First meal in Osaka- featuring Soba, Karaage Chicken with Rice and Brown Sugar Soymilk from Family Mart

After the dinner, we washed up, chit chatted and watched Animax before going to bed. I guess we were all tired from the plane ride.

Some additional footage:

The last thing I expect was Jeremy saying how he was afraid to room by himself (before our dear Ruby joined us on Day 3) and willingly crashed Nicole’s and my room without us going over to crash his. So alright, I was quite looking forward to how he gonna waste the money paid for 2 rooms and all 3 of us sleeping in 1 room with 2 single beds combined together. But it did not happen as he decided that he was not that chicken after bathing and could sleep by himself afterall.

I was actually super chill about the idea of 3 of us sleeping on a combined bed because oh well we’ve been staring at one another’s faces since 12/13 yr old (yea childhood friends yo) and what’s so awkward about sleeping together. Not so sure about them though and I care less about whether there’s any guy or girl secretly having a crush on either one of us and being absolutely jealous over the fact that I’ve said that.