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When Tomi was invited to give a talk in a conference in Kyoto (with all the expenses covered), we did not need to think long if we wanted to make it a vacation trip together and spend some extra days exploring Kansai region after the conference.
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Since our flight was relatively early in the morning we took a train to Paris the day before and spent the night at the airport hotel Citizen M. It was kind of cool and hip, but we were impressed neither by their dinner nor breakfast.
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We flew to Osaka via Frankfurt on Ana that was operated by Lufthansa. The Frankfurt flight was an hour late but the Osaka flight took off a half an hour early.
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Airplane food: pork stir fry with rice. The soba noodles were quite good.
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We landed in Kansai International Airport very early in the morning, and the first thing we wanted was to take a shower, since we still had about seven hours before we could check in at our Airbnb apartment in Kyoto.
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After a ten-minute wait (instead of the promised hour) we were directed to automated shower booths that were supposed to give us 15 minutes of warm water. Initially we both had some trouble operating the system, but eventually 15 minutes was way more than we actually needed.
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We bought one-day Kyoto passes which took us to Kyoto in 85 minutes. After putting our luggage in storage we tried to navigate the Kyoto station mall to find Porta dining.
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We chose Japanese Bowl Cafe that was quite mediocre.
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Tei had a grilled tune bowl and avocado-shrimp salad (pictured), and Tomi an egg rice bowl with pork sauce, and poached chicken salad.
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From Porta we walked to Nishiki market passing Higashi Hongan-ji temple on our way. This is one of the two dominant Hongan-ji temples in Kyoto (East Hongan-ji), the other one being Nishi Hongan-ji (West Hongan-ji), which tei visited later.
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Nishiki market had some fancy food on sale, like individually packed fruit,
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oysters and other seafood,
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And of course a lot of sneakers and other sportswear.
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After a lot of walking we fetched our luggage from storage at the Kyoto station and took a taxi to our apartment, which was located just north of the Imperial Palace. We found this shopping arcade with an excellent supermarket just two steps away.
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Too lazy to cook anything for dinner we bought some "finger food" from a stall in the arcade; "two of those, two of those and two of those!" We enjoyed the skewers with store bought fresh noodles. Yummy!
(little trivia: in Singapore "finger food" means food that one chooses by pointing a finger at at a stall)
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Next morning the alarm went off really early, and after snoozing a moment we left for a run by the river Komo. There was a nice unpaved path running on each side of the river.
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We finished the run by checking a temple in our neighborhood, next to the Doshish University.
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Then it was time for Tomi to join the conference and Tei to go sightseeing.
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Tei's first destination was the Imperial Palace in Kyoto Gyoen National Park. The palace was the residence of the emperor until 1869 when the capital was moved to Tokyo.
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Kyoto Gyoen National Park is vast with pine tree "forests" and wide gravel walkways. The entrance to the palace was in the middle of the Western wall.
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Details of Jomei-mon Gate.
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Shishinden,the most important building in the Imperial Palace, where the most important state ceremonies took place, like enthronement of the emperor. The current building dates from 1855.
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Shishinden from the other side.
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Otsunegoten, living quarters of the emperor.
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Oikeniwa Garden and Keyakibashi Bridge.
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Kogosho was used for ceremonies and imperial audiences.
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Oikeniwa garden and Keyakibashi Bridge.
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Even it was a cloudy it was very warm and muggy.
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Senior citizens playing tennis in the National Park.
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The Eastern wall of the Kyoto Gyoen National Park.
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Tomi's conference welcome dinner was held at restaurant Gion Maruyama Kagaribi.
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We had sukiyaki and Sapporo beer, a lot of both.
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Now you know how to use the toilet.
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Next morning we were up at the same time with the Sun (5:43am.), and went for another run.
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We ran to Kamigamo-jinja, which according to Lonely Planet is one of the Japan's oldest shrines, established in 679. However, the current buildings are exact reproductions of the originals and date from 17th and 19th centuries. Unfortunately, the main hall was under covers for renovation.
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CNN recently wrote that "there are 5.5 million vending machines in Japan -- one for every 23 people, the highest ratio in the world." They are very convenient when one goes running and does not want to carry water.
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As Tomi left for another conference day, Tei headed to Botanical Gardens.
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This guy was photographing the water.
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It was another hot day so every bit of shade was welcome.
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Stone work on the pavement.
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Tei spent at least an hour in the Conservatory, which had a pretty extensive and beautifully designed exhibition of tropical plants, ranging from orchids to wet to dry to alpine gardens.
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Some flower and plant pictures follow.
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Perhaps the most interesting was the night garden.
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Conservatory and the water lily pond.
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Kindergarten on excursion.
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This guy was still photographing the waterfall when Tei returned from the Botanical Gardens after spending there more than two hours.
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Next and the final destination of the day was Shimogamo-jinja shrine.
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Tei's take-out lunch from the nearby supermarket: potato salad and slaw, a hambagu, and stir-fried pork and vegetables.
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Tomi's conference banquet was held at restaurant Imozo Kyoto Kimachi in Pontocho area. This time we were served motsunabe, and then some sushi and tempura to finish the meal.
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We finished the night in a karaoke lounge.
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We stayed relatively late, but heard next day that some of the conference participants had stayed much longer and even continued their excursion to another karaoke lounge, with the results that one of them failed to show up to give his talk the next day.
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Our last day in Kyoto opened gray, but still quite warm. We took our backpacks to storage at the railway station. Tomi left to his conference and Tei to do more sightseeing.
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The first destination was Nishi Hongan-ji temple (West Hongan-ji)
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Karamon gate in Nishi Hongan-ji.
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This artist was sharpening his pencils against the stone fence.
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Goeidō Hall of Nishi Hongan-ji.
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The next destination was Nijo-jo Castle. This is Kara-mon gate in the castle ('Karamon' refers to a type of gate)
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Ninomaru-goten Palace. Photographing inside the palace was not allowed.
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This bird got a a lot of attention. Of all the attractions Tei visited during the three days, this castle was clearly the most popular among the tourists --- it even got crowded at places, whereas both the Imperial Palace and the Botanical Gardens were quite empty and quiet.
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Koun-tei teahouse and Seiryu-en Garden.
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Gigantic lotus flower "Breathing flower" by Korean artist Choi Jeong Hwa.
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The outer moat.
From the castle Tei headed towards the river (Komo-gawa) on Oike-dori, visiting the gallery of Kyoto Art University and a couple of outdoor stores on the way.
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It started to drizzle so the covered shopping archade/street Teramachi-dori was very welcome. And the suddenly begun hunger was soon relieved by Lipton Teahouse's lunch set: hambagu and fried shrimp with rice and salad.
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From Teramachi the walk continued to Pontocho.
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The streets looked quite different at daytime (and in rain) than in the evening with lights on and full of people.
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Fast forward --- once Tomi's conference was over, in no time we found ourselves in rainy streets of Nara. We had some difficulty in finding Guest House Route 53 Furuichi Ryokan; it turned out there are two guest houses with the same name and we found the wrong one first.
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Not much later we were at Parco Teppanyaki restaurant for dinner, okonomiyaki with Chilean cabernet sauvignon.
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On our way back to the guest house (which was like 50 meters away) we stopped at Tsunoya bar for sake tasting. We asked the bartender for recommendations and chose three (for 1000 yen): A (balanced), B (sharp), and J (cedar cask matured).
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The room price at Guest House Route 53 Furuichi included two pieces of toast and two eggs per person for breakfast. Also the coffee was free.
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Our first destination of the day was the Tourist Office at the railway station to find out how to get to the Enjo-ji temple by bus. From there the goal was to take a forest walk that followed an old pilgrimage route back to Nara.
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Once there, we took a quick tour in the Enjo-ji temple (for 400 yens per person) before starting our walk.
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The temple area was very idyllic in the early Fall foliage.
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The path was relatively easy to walk except some muddy or rocky sections, and the long downhill on wet and slippery cobble stones in the end.
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There were several toilets and teahouses along the way, but unfortunately only one nice spot to have lunch.
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Take-out supermarket lunch. A group of three Japanese gentlemen joined us at our lunch spot and offered some rice cakes. They were the largest number of people we met on our walk.
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The deities of Asahi Kannon. There were a number of Buddhist rock carvings by the walking route, and they were conveniently marked in our map. Otherwise, we would have missed most of them, since it was a grey day and light was scarce in the woods, and most of the carvings were meters away from the trail.
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When back in Nara we visited the Kofuku-ji temple site. This is the five-story pagoda.
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It is there where a group of pupils from Hachioji Daigo junior high school (in Tokyo) decided to interview Tomi for their English language assignment. And of course have a picture with him afterwards.
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At 7pm. we left for dinner, but the places we had in mind were already closed or about to close. Despite looking like an ordinary boring mall restaurant from the outside, we eventually (after passing by a couple of times) chose LBK Craft, a gastro pub that is run by an American who had lived in Japan for 20 years.
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We had some craft beers with gyozas and chili fried tofu to start with.
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LBK Craft was popular among expats.
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We finished with craft beer marinated 24-hour spareribs and variety of veggies with miso. The food was superb, and so was the service (although very "western")
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Next morning we were up and running before 7am. in Nara Park. It was sunny and nicely cool. This is Nara National Museum.
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Nara national Museum New Wing.
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Deer of Nara park on the foot of Wakakusayama Hill.
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The garden of Kasuga Taisha Shrine, or thereabouts.
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After the normal morning routines we took the backpacks to the storage at the Nara station, and walked to Nara Palace Site. It was not very scenic walk, and when reaching our destination we found ourselves in the middle of huge construction site. They were doing landscaping and in general, improving the palace site for better visitor experience.
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A longish detour took us to Suzaku gate. There we were met by friendly, English speaking older gentlemen handing out brochures about the palace site.
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From the gate we walked to Former Imperial Audience Hall.
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The walk was interrupted by Kintetsu Nara Line that run through the Nara Palace Site.
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They had great improvement plans for this site.
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Former Imperial Audience Hall. This whole building is a reconstruction on an old archaeological site.
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Reconstructed center ornament of the roof ridge. No original one was found on the archaeological site, so this was modeled after the ornaments used in other contemporary buildings.
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Reconstructed end ornament of the roof ridge. No original ones were found on the site, so this was modeled after the ornaments used in other contemporary buildings.
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We did not have time to visit all the place at the palace site since we had to hurry to the Tanabe train.
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Even when we took a bus back to the town center, we had just enough time to shop another delicious take-out supermarket lunch.
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At every station we passed, there were people taking photos of our train. Finally we knew why.
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Once we reached our very nice guest house at Ichie cafe, we did not do much but prepare for the next day's hike on Kumano Kodo before heading out for dinner.
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Finding a place to eat was again an adventure since places were either full or did not have English or picture menus. Finally we were seated in a private room in Ichiyoshi (with a non-functional server call button, which we found out after waiting for 15 minutes for the server to appear --- very uncharacteristic Japanese service). We ordered a seafood hot pot and edamames. The hot pot was rather small so we order eel sushi rolls for dessert.
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We had chiffon cake with coffee or tea for breakfast at Ichie. Then we boarded a bus to Kumano Hongu Taisha, and in an hour and a half we were there. The Meiko-line bus was super comfortable and served both tourists going hiking the Kumano Kodo but also locals who went to work or school along the line.
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We took a short detour in Hongu Taisha before starting the 11-kilometer walk.
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O-torii in Hongu Taisha, the largest Torii shrine gate in the world with height of 33.9 meters and width of 42 meters. It was erected in 2000.
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Now we knew we were on the trail.
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We started the walk to a steep uphill. The trail zig-zagged mostly a pine forest, so we were in shade on this very hot day.
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We did meet one snake when crossing a sunny spot.
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After one hour and 15 minutes and about 3 kilometers of walking we were in Yunomine onsen.
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Yunomine onsen is a very idyllic and charming hot spring village. We bought 2 liters of water before continuing to Funatama-jinja.
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From Yunomine on the trail was practically flat and much more walkable.
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Few spots offered a view to the nearby hills.
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We found the remains of an old teahouse, Kakihara-jaya, and this small Buddha statue next to it.
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From Funatama-jinja we continued to Hosshinmon-oji bus stop. We had an our to devour our lunch while waiting for the bus to take us back to Tanabe.
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When back in Tanabe around 5pm. we walked straight to the sea to enjoy the wonderful sunset.
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At 8pm. we found ourselves at the counter of Kanteki restaurant (there had been no seats for us the night before). The place is smoky and full, no English is spoken, but the service is very friendly. Of course, we attracted quite a bit of attention since not many westerners find themselves there; there place is somewhat hard to find since there are no signs outside.
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We ordered several items in this izakaya style place: eel sushi in place of the eel dish we ordered but was not available, kimchi pork, deep fried eggplant, sweet potato tempura with two large pints of Asahi. We were also offered chestnuts and chestnut chips (chestnuts were in season).
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From Kanteki we continue to Hangover Diner to taste wines.
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We finished the evening in Cafe Solo, where we tasted Japanese whiskeys, Youichi (Hokkaido) and Suntory. We were also offered tasters of Suntory Umeshu plum liquor matured in a toasted cask and distilled potato beverage shochu.
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Morning view from our room at Ichie.
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We quickly checked the nearby Horin-ji temple (or that's what we thought) before crossing the Aizu-gawa River. The wife of the abbot invited us to see their Japanese garden. Next thing we found out was that she was making us green tea and serving it with bean paste buns. She introduced her 75-year-old mother, who had visited a Buddhist temple in Italy on her European tour in May. She was very proud to show us photos she had taken in her trips in France. We also signed their guest book. The visit was very nice and heartwarming, although a bit strange.
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This was an extremely hot day, especially at places were there was no breeze.
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Breakwater in Ebisu-gyoko port.
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Our first tourist destination was Tanabe Castle Water Gate remains.
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Fish on their way to market.
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We climbed the hill to visit a temple, but we only found a cemetery, and no access to the temple.
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A short supermarket visit at Evergreen to buy water. We also bought Kewpie mayo and Shichi-mi tōgarashi spice blend, at so much lower prices than in France.
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A tenant in the supermarket toilet.
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When back in the city center we checked a couple of temples.
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Then it was time to find a place for lunch, but even if it was already noon, all the places were closed (it was Tuesday). Finally, on Ginza Street we found Cafe Rurucoro. We had their lunch sets, one each.
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Before returning to Ichie to pick up our backpacks we checked one more temple.
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Minato Street, where most restaurants and bars are.
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A couple of hours later we were in Osaka walking 1.8 kilometers from Wakayama station to Daiwa Roynet Hotel.
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We were upgraded to a room on the 18. floor with a view over to Wakayama Castle.
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We were done with sightseeing and did not even bother to visit the castle, just admired the view from our room.
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And we chose to have dinner in restaurant Riché located downstairs in the same building.
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Riché only had a Japanese menu, but the server fluently translated it into English for us.
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First beams of the rising sun reaching Wakayama Castle.
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Early morning exercise in Wakayama Park.
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The castle in full sunlight.
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A quick lunch at Kansai International Airport before boarding our flihgt to Frankfurt.
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Another airplane meal on ANA/Lufthansa flight.
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