Final post before I called it an end on my trip report.
Nara - We chose to leave Kyoto, but de tour on a very short trip before heading back to Osaka. It's a town famous for its snowy deer (雪花鹿).
Upon reaching the train station, we had difficulty getting a locker to store our luggage. It's not easy to tug along a 26" trolly bag. I couldn't remember whether we got the XL locker, or 2 medium lockers. Lesson for detour trip, always bring smaller luggage, but the downside is you won't be able to shop more. :)
Glad the weather was good that day. Little sunshine especially when we walked towards the garden full of deers, and a few shrines visit. The walk was pleasant.
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| Snowy Deer |
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| Deer, full of love to the elderly |
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| Deer feeding |
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| Deer crossing - caution |
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| Deer's biscuit food |
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| Shrine wishing plates |
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| Temple visit |
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| Beautiful flowers |
We settled for a must-eat-dessert of Nara - Caramel pudding. It has been highly recommended in Trip Advisors. I was expecting a nice cafe selling this. Unfortunately, the given route was not accurate. We found a generous by-passer aunty who brought us to the right place, but it ended up that has been converted to its factory. Their store has been moved to the train station. This kind hearted aunty brought us to the station instead. She insisted to bring us, even though we told her we know the way. Japanese are just ever friendly, and most important she can speak English.
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| Pudding |
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| Pudding store |
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| Yummy~ |
I bought a set of bento sushi from the stall next door. Those filled ourselves for our tiny lunch.
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| Sushi stall |
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| Lovely sushi bento |
Upon returning from Nara to Osaka. We dropped out luggage at our hotel then went straight for final shopping. Rikuro soft cheese cake was also one of the recommended dessert, we settled for one (in fact it was meant for our mid night supper and next day breakfast).
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| Queuing for cheese cake |
GU & Uniqlo are the must-go place for apparel shopping. We spotted a few in Kyoto, and purposely waited for Friday and weekend for the regular sale. My other favorite place for shopping is grocery place, i.e. Isetan, etc.. why? See pics below.
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| GU & Uniqlo |
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| Mid sized and mini Yamazaki |
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| Keep trying my favorite choya.. this is sparkling |
We were on walking-lunch and dinner most of the time. Final day is worth a proper sit down dinner. We couldn't find a decent and affordable type, ended by settled with Gyukaku for BBQ beef.. I remember my 1st try was in Singapore, someone treated me this good dinner... but I couldn't get the special "pop-ing" BBQ dessert. According to some reading, Gyukaku is like normal chained store in Japan, can be found everywhere.
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| Beef bbq |
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| The set |
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| The real beef - flowery nice |
Checking out our hotels toiletries were fun too. All hotels we had were well equipped with large bottles of body shampoo, conditioner, hair shampoo and even face soap/hand soap. All were Shiseido, the local brand. I personally like one of the ocean seaweed series.. so refreshing. We were interested with the foam type bottle, hence purposely went to shop for some from the Drug stores.
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| Add caption |
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| Hotel's facial soap |
Other shopping, my must buy Phiten.. We took 2 hours walking around Osaka train station to hunt for the shop. Finally, I was able to get what I want, slightly smaller shop compared to Kyoto HQ, but its all good enough.
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| Phiten |
Foods we normally eat.
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| Wrapped rice |
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| Mini kitkat bites |
Lastly, before our flight off at the airport. Had a quick round at the nearby factory outlet, Rinku Outlet. The concept of outlet exactly like what I usually had in US.
Nice walk around, but we caught into some problem at the airport, cos we couldn't find luggage locker (again), which is huge enough for our larger luggage. That spent about close to 1 hour, that was even with the help of an elderly airport attendant, he was so kind enough (while he does not know how to speak English at all), brought us up and down to hunt for luggage space. Tips: Have smaller bags or travel at some wee hour to get space for luggage, everything is automated and the manual luggage caretaker may cost you a bomb!
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| Rinku outlet |
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| Again with Ferris wheel |
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| Check out the special edition price |
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| Right before take off |
Oh ya.. other important shopping stuffs were chocolates... Royce choco which only available at the airport departure hall. Many nice favor were out of stock that evening before our flight took off. Only managed to get some. I was indulge with the choco dipped chips. :P
The end of report.
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