A Day Trip to Kyoto and Barcelona

MJ: This week I have a week off for Obon. Obon is a Buddhist-Confucian custom to honour relatives who have died. In modern times though, it is a time when people travel to their hometowns, and then do any maintenance/cleaning etc on their family graves. It is not officially a public holiday, but many companies get given time off, and my boss closes the school for a whole week. Because Nico and I are travelling home to Perth soon we chose to not go to Miyako-jima this week and 'save money' and 'prepare for Perth' here in Amagasaki.

But we still wanted to do something. 

So we decided to go to Kyoto for the day - close(ish), a little bit tourist-y with a few offbeat places we wanted to see.

fish heads ('tai')

Our first stop was Nishiki-Ichiba, or Nishiki Market. It is a long arcade market in central Kyoto, which can trace its roots back to the Edo Period (as in the samurai/ninja/geisha period in history). It is a quaint little market with many stalls selling different teas, fish, pickles, rice and other different foods. It almost feels like you have stepped back in time a little.

Tofu nuggets

Nico and I ate our way through the market before braving the rain and heading to a small lolly shop.

Nico: I have always wanted to go to the lolly shop in Kyoto. But the shop is not in central Kyoto and definitely not tourist area. Besides, Kyoto is always too crowded to shopping in just one place from Amagasaki. The lolly shop is the only shop that makes and sells Japanese traditional small bits of candy in Japan. The name of the sweets is `kon pei tou'.

When I was a child,`Kon pei tou' was cheap sweets and the type you always receive from old ladies or as a cheap prize at a festival. Most of the time `Kon pei tou' is still cheap sweets except for that shop in Kyoto.

This is `Kon pei tou' we bought from the shop.

Usually,`Kon pei tou' is only sweet like sugar and pretty colors. It is made from rock candy and water and poppy seed grains. So the taste is just sweet regardless of the color.

flavored:cider, lemon, strawberry, melon, grape, mandarin

But the shop `Ryokujuan　Shimizu' makes them with real fruits and fruits juice with usual ingredients. It is really hard and takes long time to make `Kon pei tou' ,so if you want to buy them, you should go the shop when the shop opens. The shop makes it with traditional method, so they can't make large amounts. Because of it, the candies are not cheap now. But unbelievably yummy. They are definitely not same `Kon pei tou' as when I was a child.

If you have time, it might be fun to read the link of Wikipedia. `Kon pei tou is originally from Portugal and they have 24 projections each candy.

MJ: Our final stop was a restaurant at JR Kyoto Train Station. Now this advice is for the people who are in Japan for a long time - Kyoto has a lot of amazing food that it NOT Japanese! My mum and sister both often ask me what I am eating for dinner - and get all disappointed when I tell them it is something 'Normal' like spaghetti. Don't get me wrong, I love Japanese food, but sometimes it is good to eat non-Japanese.

And the Spanish restaurant 'Rico' is amazing. I think I have a new favourite cuisine. It was to celebrate our four year anniversary, so a little bit more upmarket than we would normally go to, but oh so worth it!

The grilled lamb cutlets with garlic aioli and roast potatoes was perfect for this poor little Aussie - and cooked to perfection. THEN, the most amazing paella I have ever eaten. Oh my goodness, it was like being in food heaven! Topped off with a beautiful Spanish red...

A perfect trip to Kyoto, with a short side trip to Barcelona - perfect start to the week!