Japan Day 10: Automatic doors and shopping for cute things that we shouldn't be buying

shopping---the bane of my existence.

today was a complete shopping day. christine and i have been in japan for about 10 days now and we should have seen and bought everything that we possibly could have. 

NOPE lol XD darn all cute japanese things....

day started off with another breakfast buffet. i don't think christine and i will ever learn that we don't have the stomachs to actually try everything lol at this point, we hardly ever touch any of the japanese food for breakfast besides rice and rice seasoning. and i will never have natto ever again lol kinda sad because i want to be authentic and eat the cuisine.  but just like when i was in vietnam, i had a craving for french fries again...which was fulfilled because they used fries as replacements for hashbrowns. sigh. so bad lol

visited Kiyomizu buddhist temple, located among the mountains in Kyoto.  Overall, the temples in Japan are pretty amazing.  All of them are so elaborate and made without modern tools and machinery.  it's crazy to think about the amount of work that it must have taken to complete every single one.  Kiyomizu is no exception.  Probably the biggest temple that we've seen, it's held up on the side of a mountain with lots of pillars since no nails are used in the building.  and it has breathtaking views of the landscape and Kyoto city.

purify yourself with my saliva...or else :D

You know, I technically did not type that in.  But I did say it at the time, along with commentary of how the dragon probably looked mad because he's been relegated to pouring water for people to clean themselves at a temple instead of doing dragon-y things.  But I guess he should be honored people think that his saliva can purify them...?  Or maybe I'm reading too much into things, as usual...

buddha :]  If you rub the Buddha, you will get her happiness :3  Tiffy has the Buddha's knee's happiness.

strolled along the winding paths full of souvenir and food shops during our free time.  definitely took advantage of free samples of these cinnamon rice powder mochi things called yatsuhashi filled with chocolate, fruit or other things lol really really good, but we refrained from buying anything because we've spent about 5 or 6 days trying to eat this red bean custard cake thing we bought in our first days in tokyo -_- plus we eat waaaaaaay too many sweets anyways lol  So far we've tried orange, peach, chocolate, red bean, green tea, black sesame, mango, apple... this purple-y blue thing we think might be blueberry... Yeah, I think we feel like pigs all the time now...

Lunch was at a Japanese Italian restaurant located in a 100 year old building with really short ceilings.  It was funny to see all the men in our group have to duck because they were just taller than the average sized japanese person many years ago lol for once, i almost can touch the ceiling :D achievement for me!

Made our way to Osaka, the 3rd largest city in Japan, after.  reminds me a lot of tokyo lol whereas kyoto was the center of japanese culture and peaceful, osaka is full of glittering lights and neon signs.  after touring osaka castle, we spent about 3 hours in the shopping district.  christine and i tried okonomiyaki, a japanese-like omelet, for dinner and it was really good.  More like a stuffed pancake, really.  we got the special at a small restaurant, Yukari, which consisted of pork, shrimp, squid and other stuff lol  anddddd i finally got my takoyaki!  

i'm not sure what i was expecting because my only experience with takoyaki is anime lol (anyone remember hacchin from one piece? lol)  anyways, it literally was octopus in a fried dumpling covered in some sauce.  not bad....definitely was chewy lol i think i was expecting to be amazed at the weirdness of it all.  i think by now all the weirdness in japan is just normal now :P  I tried one (of the 6, and actually we gave one to David because we ran into them later), and I just thought that it tasted very... sauce-y.  I don't know what I was expecting, either.  Actually, for some reason I was expecting it to come on a stick... It wasn't bad, though.

Osaka Castle

Shinsaibashi & Dotonburi Shopping Arcades

Before we explored the shopping district, which I think is called Nanba, we (just me and Tiffy) took a ride with Maiko-san in a taxi so that she could show us where our bus stop is to get to the airport.  First time riding in a taxi in Japan!  And, of course, first thing we did was take pictures (secretly) of the inside XD  One cool thing is that the drivers wear white gloves.  Another cool thing, which we actually read about before coming to Japan but neglected, is that taxi doors open and close automatically.  That is, on their own.  Like, you don't touch them and they open and then you get out/in and then they close, without you touching them ever.  Maybe it's weird, I think that's really cool XD

(Somehow I feel like this post is slightly disorganized... well it's really late whenever we write;;  Sorry everyone~)

one more day in japan! i can't believe it. then we're heading to chinaaaaaa :D and i know no mandarin. gaaaahh.  Nah, you know 6 phrases.  You're fine XD

p.s. btw, and yes...we did buy stuff today. boooooo

I've got more to add, but it's 1:30 AM here and we need to get up in about 5 hours, so I'll make my additional commentary later :3  Oyasumi nasai~