Today involved shopping! And sushi, finally

Not as exciting of a day today, since I was mainly doing souvenir shopping this morning, and then spent many hours this afternoon/evening heading back to Tokyo (well, Narita) to stay in an airport hotel so I can leave tomorrow for Shanghai.

Still, you know I have a set of photos from today!

I started off with my last breakfast at Hotel Mume. I can't recommend this place enough if you're ever in Kyoto. The owner/hostess is so incredibly sweet and helpful, and the whole staff is very attentive. Then the setting and decor is lovely, and the food is just amazing! This time I even have me in a picture with the food, and I was excited to see another fruit salad containing those purple/magenta fruit pieces, too.





On the front door:


After breakfast I mostly finished packing, and then set off back to the Kiyomizu Temple area to hit some of the shops I saw yesterday. I found some goodies for myself and others as I wandered these cool little streets. And this time I took a different path back, and came across the Disney Wa-Qu entrance. I was very excited since I had read about this place where traditional Kyoto artists apply their techniques to create (mostly) subtle Disney designs. I got a couple of little things, but was able to take photos of some of the rest of the stuff.








Then I was headed Downtown to meet up with Marc for lunch before I left. We had picked a place for sushi that was in my guide book and boy am I glad we did. The food was amazing, and super-affordable! It's cool that Dopplr helped Marc and I find out we would be in the same place. Twice now I've been able to meet up with friends in places because of that site!





And then I went back to my hotel to collect my things and hit the road. Two trains later I got to Narita and now I'm pretty darn tired. Despite my plane being at 11:10, I have to leave the hotel at 8:30, so I guess I should get to sleep soon.

There's other photos of just wandering the city, and a whole series of a Totoro shop and plastic food (this is how they advertise what's in a restaurant), so go check out the flickr set for those!

I actually found myself extremely sad to leave Kyoto. I'm sure this is due in part to feeling like I had a real home in Hotel Mume, but also from seeing so many amazing things, and barely scratching the surface of the place. I'm sad to leave Japan, but I've loved my time here and look forward to returning in the not-too-distant future. Plus I get to see a bunch of friends when I get to Shanghai, so I'm very excited about that!