After the travels of yesterday and our late arrival in to Kyoto, we were all ready for a good sleep in a proper bed, so we didn't have the most energetic start to the day. Eventually we dragged ourselves out of the hotel in order to search for some food for breakfast. In the brief research that I'd done about what we might like to see I had stumbled across the Nishki Market, apparently refereed to some as Kyoto's Kitchen.
(Tasty treats for everyone!)
We decided that sounded like both a good place to find some food and somewhere that would be interesting to spend a bit of time. We navigated our way there via subway and found that it was indeed a fascinating place. We'd only made it about 3 shops in though before we came across the first 100Yen shop (think cheap as chips). The kids quickly disappeared eagerly inside and we weren't far behind. The obligatory souvenir chopsticks were the first thing procured, along with what was assumed to be wasabi peas and some Super Lemon (simply because I couldn't help myself).
Kit Kats have been on Sam's list since we first arrived as he'd heard that there's lots of weird types around the place. We talked him out of buying them when we landed at the airport, though have at times since indulged in tea, green tea and strawberry-flavoured varieties. No sign of the chilli ones that he saw on day one.
(A quaint little side street of the Nishki Market itself)
The variety of foodstuffs in the long, completely quaint market was far beyond the range of my culinary bravery and I was happy just to have a look and keep going in most cases. I kept to the simpler things in life ... chicken wings, deep-fried prawns and tempura fish bites. Caroline, always the brave one did indulge in a couple of tastes, but after finding something that even she couldn't stomach, became a little more circumspect.
I was also surprised to find a couple of specialist chopstick shops within the market. Who knew that there were so many different chopsticks and that you could spend so much. We later saw a pair in Inari that were selling for over 2,000 dollars. Apparently they are made using traditional methods and each pair is over a year in construction!
On the list of things we didn't try was this interesting dessert pizza that I saw advertised. It could be fun and interesting, but hey, we didn't come to Japan to eat pizza.
The market gave way to a couple of covered avenues of shops and lo and behold if we didn't discover that we had a teenage shopaholic amongst us. As we attempted to walk down and check out all the different things that were available, we found ourselves stopping every second shop or so for Michael to investigate the latest in Japanese men's fashion. I think he's coming home with most of a new wardrobe as long as it can be crammed back into our luggage!
We also found a couple of things for Emily in a shop that seemed to cater very much to the cute Japanese teen-girl look (think skirts and tops with cute white collars) even if some of their clothes had some interesting (rather than comprehensible) things written on the front of them.
(I'm still yet to come up with any idea as to what they wanted to say with this)
By far the best clothing I've never bought was located within the market when I found a shop with these t-shirts. I was certainly tempted, but couldn't quite bring myself to do it even just to get a single photo with everyone in the family wearing one!
(With the Mother and Father T-shirts added in, we had a complete set going!)
(I was going to get the one on the right for Michael, but couldn't think of any occasion for someone to wear the one on the left!)
Thomas and I strolled into a Manga shop at one point just for a quick look around. With everything being in Japanese there wasn't any intent to buy anything, it was just a curiosity satisfying survey. I forgot when I entered all those things that I'd heard about Manga growing up (not a lot, but enough) and turned a corner at one point to be confronted by covers everywhere depicting young women with unnaturally large and completely unclothed boobs! I quickly turned to steer a rather wide-eyed Thomas back the way we came before tentacles and things became involved! I was rather glad that Emily hadn't accompanied us on that little venture!
Eventually we worked our way out of the shops to descend into the food section of Daimaru, supposedly one of the best food halls in Kyoto. I have to say that I was a little disappointed. The Market was a lot more interesting, if also mostly inedible. Its like comparing the Central Market in Adelaide to the DJ's food hall - different target markets entirely
We were all a little amused at the collection of bikes parked all around the several 'No Bike Parking' signs just outside the doors.
No one was particularly keen to try the Pocari Sweat drink (I realise its an electrolyte drink, but lets not tell the kids that!).
By the time we'd completed all the unplanned shopping, it was well and truly dark and dinner beckoned. We headed back to the small street at the start of the Nishki market where we'd seen a Teppanyaki restaurant advertised. With great enthusiasm we climbed the stairs only to be told that we'd have to wait 10-15 minutes and that we'd have to sit at separate tables. That was fine by us only we were then very apologetically informed that the young waitress had made a mistake and that they wouldn't be able to accommodate us at all. She was kind enough to give us a map that seemed to indicate where two of their other restaurants were, but sadly there wasn't any English on it, nor any landmarks by which we could identify them.
Onward we went. We found a second place only to find that whilst they had the seats available, they didn't have an English menu. Caroline was happy to go in on the basis of 'bring us some pork, chicken, beef etc) but the guy seemed really reluctant to engage in that sort of carry-on and so we beat a retreat.
We ended up on a little restaurant that charcoal cooked little skewers of meat and sat down for a feast. When we perused the menu and found things like cartilage on it, I was perhaps a little relieved that we hadn't gone with the 'bring us chicken' option as who knows which bit of the chicken we would have been getting. Caroline thought that perhaps the cartilage might have been a mis-translation of something, but when we attempted to have the waitress clarify, it was pretty clear that it wasn't. The kids settled for chicken thigh and chicken meat balls and Caroline and I for wings. I think we needed a local guide before we would have been prepared to be more adventurous.
We caught the train back and settled our well-worked feet into bed fo the night, planning on a temple-run the following day to see a bit more of what Kyoto was known for rather than just its shops.
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