Today we woke up and met our friend at a Starbucks at Kanayama Station before he left back to Korea. We had just gotten our breakfasts and sat down and were talking for a few minutes when the whole building and ground shook! Everyone in the building was looking around to see what just happened since all the tables and chairs shook since it came from nowhere. It was Sara’s and my first earthquake. It was a 4.8 magnitude 7.5 miles from Nagoya:
Our friend said, “Now you’ve experienced it all in Japan… typhoons… earthquakes…” It only lasted a few seconds, but felt like the ground rolled on itself, lifted and then set back in place. Everyone just went right on where they left off when it finished.
After we finished eating we said goodbye to our friend and we made our way to Osu Mall and the Osu Kannon Shrine near it. We had a few hours to kill before our train took us to Kyoto. The mall was a covered, open air mall with various shops and restaurants in it. We purchased a magnet, representing our visit to Nagoya. We then stopped at the shrine which was extremely busy:
After the shrine, we headed back into the mall and found ice cream that was sandwiched between two slices of melon pan, which melon pan is its own dessert. Melon pan is a sweet bread, but a subdued sweetness and sometimes with a hint of butter in it. This time it was similar but coated with sugar and chocolate ice cream between the slices. Here it is:
Needless to say, it was really, really good. After we had the ice cream we headed north toward Nagoya station. Our phones were telling us two of the nearby subways lines to Nagoya station were delayed so we decided we’d just walk the 30 minute walk to the station, plus we still had time to kill. Our route took us past the science museum again and there was some event going on in the park out front of the museum. It looked like moms and their kids singing and dancing to J-POP. We decided to sit in the shade and enjoy the nice weather for a while before heading to Nagoya Station to board the Shinkansen to Kyoto. Here’s what the park area looked like, the building to the left is the science museum from the other day’s post for reference:
The tree line surrounding the opening actually provided walking paths too that people were walking on. When it was time to move on we walked north west to Nagoya Station and then waited about 15 minutes before our train was ready to board.
It was only about a 50 minute ride down to Kyoto and once there we made a short walk from Kyoto station to a nearby subway line that took us to our hotel area. Once by our hotel, there were a ton of people out and about going to all the shops and restaurants in the area.
We rested a bit from all our walking then headed to dinner and ate sukiyaki, which is where you cook the food over an open flame at your table. We had various cuts of beef and vegetables. The beef was so tender it literally melted in your mouth. I unfortunately forgot to get a picture of it, but we were rather famished and wasted no time eating.
We left the restaurant and walked around a bit and we found a Tabio store, so I got some more socks. We then stopped in a music store as I was curious to see what guitar prices were like in Japan. They were the same as the US more or less, but was interesting to see their prices in yen. Lastly, we got crepes for dessert before heading back to our hotel.
Today’s post is a little short since we travelled most of the time and didn’t have much planned to do. Tomorrow we have a full day in Kyoto so we will have a lot more to report on then.
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