Ari & Nici in Japan - food and beverages (食べ物と飲み物)

Hey guys (^-^)v

I'm so sorry I didn't post for such a long time.. It was the longest hiatus I have taken until now and I wish I could promise it never happens again, but I am not entirely sure about that. Anyways, I needed some time for myself, also to sort some things out. My current occupation doesn't allow me to have a lot of free time, and I am almost stressed out everyday with studying and homework and more studying (maybe I will explain it in a seperate post if anyone is interested in what I'm doing at the moment). So I took advantage of the holidays I had and did absolutely nothing. And I really needed that for myself to keep me going and to be able to finish the last two semesters. So I hope you understand and are still a little bit interested in what I post. For what comes next, I think there will be two more post about my Japan journey (it's more than a year ago by now Q_Q) and than we will see what's coming as, with a lack of free time, I also don't have time to explore things and show them to you.. But I have some huge plans for my future that I want to share with you and I will keep this blog running to at least that point of time. Anyway, here we go with the next post ^-^

Before Nici and I left for Japan my dad asked me to take photos of the stuff I was going to eat there because he had nearly no idea of what Japanese food was like (except for sushi of course). So I thought it may be a nice idea to write a post about what we were eating and drinking in Japan.
Also, I thought it might be interesting for some people, who also are vegetarians, as Japan is not really a vegetarian-friendly country and there is fish or meat included in lots of things..

While staying at our host family's place in Tokyo we usually got breakfast and dinner from our host mom.

breakfast - red bean paste filled bread, yoghurt with a slice of pineapple and a boiled egg (that I didn't like at all.. tasted like it has been boiled in soy sauce or something..)

breakfast - miso soup and some vegetables rice stuff for the microwave (althought I told our host mom that I am vegetarian I think there was fish included.. I just picked out everything that looked suspicious x3)

Dinner - Japanese style pasta, absolutely delishious *-*

Dinner - rice with stir-fried tofu, onions and some more slimy stuff (but tasted pretty good)

Dessert - CAKE ROLLS!

Dinner - vegetarian hamburger steak and rice

 As you maybe can guess from the amount of pictures I, most of the days, forgot to take pictures.. 
One evening, after we had visited a wind orchestra competition of our host mom's daughter, she treated us to dinner for kaiten zushi (running sushi)

You could either take something off of the conveyor belt or order something you like via touch screen

Mine delicious food ^-^
Our host mom laughed at us for only eating "children's stuff"..

they also had so yummy desserts that were soo amazing ^-^

As poor stundents don't travel with enough money to go to restaurants, we also bought a lot of food in Convenience Stores:

Dango and Milk tea

left - Nici's; right - mine, there was fish in the sushi rolls but I just picked it out

Yakisoba Pan

Omu raisu and Pasta

Melon Pan

A really great thing about Japan is that there are vending mashines for drinks nearly everywhere. Especially during the hot summers this is super convenient and refreshing ^-^

C. C. Grape - really delicious

My favourite drink of all time: C. C. Lemon ♥

favourite tea - just usual green tea, super refreshing at hot days ^-^

One day in Osaka we also got a pizza. As you might have heard before, pizza in Japan is super-expensive. We paid like 15 Euros for a normal-sized one (in Germany you can get some for like 5 Euros or even cheaper), and it was not even delicious.. My pizza margherita was flavoured with some strange herbs and tasted really unfamiliar, and the pizzas my friend's had ordered, did not have that usual pizza crust, but were made with some kind of puff paste instead.. I don't know if all pizza stores do it that way, but I can not really recommend eating pizza in Japan alone because of the price x'D

We also bought a lot of the really fancy snacks and ice creams Japan has to offer:

Ice cream from Baskin Robbins - Suica (watermelon) and cookie flavour. Definitely try out this store! Is has one of the best ice creams I have ever eaten

Frozen yoghurt you could assort on your own! Unfortunately, you pay for the weight and these were a bit very expensive..

Hello Kitty dounut at Sanrio Puroland (did not taste as good as it looked to be honest..)

famous Harajuku Crepe with strawberries, cheese cake, and chocolate sauce ♥

Last but not least I want to show you our food we had at fast food restaurants. All in all, we only tried two of them: Lotteria and MOS Burger. MOS Burger is my absolutely all time favourite! At the moment they only offer one vegetarian burger, but it is absolutely delicious ♥

Melon Soda and Rice-Kinpira Burger at MOS♥

Lotteria one the other hand only has frensh fries if you don't eat meat or fish...

Frensh Fries and (of course) Melon Soda again ^-^

But next time I also want to try Freshness Burger. They also offer a vegetarian black bean burger ^-^

Japan has to offer a really wide range of food and you will definitely not die of hunger as a vegetarian, but on the other hand it is really hard to find something you can eat in a restaurant. When we went eating out with our host family in Osaka, our host dad ordered ramen without meat for me and it was no problem, but I haven't tried it on my own yet, so I don't know if it had worked out too. But in supermarkets and conbinis you get lots of food you can eat and it's really good! It's just a bit sad that it is hard to get traditional food without meat or fish. If you are really craving for it, you can go to a Buddhist temple restaurant that traditionally serve vegan food, but it's terribly expensive so I didn't do it..

Well, I hope I could give you some new information and provide an insight into what kind of food will expect you if you don't go to restaurants.

Thank you for reading, and feel free to leave your opinion or questions in the comments!

See you next time (^-^)v

 

Ari & Nici in Japan: Kyoto - Kinkakuji in heavy rain

Hey guys (^.^)v

I'm happy to see you are back!

Today I want to show you our adventures in Kyoto ♥ 

To be honest, we went to Kyoto two times.. (but I will summerize both trips in this one post)
The first time, we wanted to go to Gion, the Philosopher's Path and, of course, the famous Kinkaku-Ji (Golden Temple). When we got out of the train station, we saw they way we wanted to go on a map and so headed for this direction. After we did not find any of the buildings and gardens shown on the map, we were searching for another and found out we were walking in the wrong direction o.o 
So, if you are yourself in Japan one day, 
be sure that on street maps north is not nessesarily at the top...

But, as we did not wanted the whole walk to be wasted time, we, nevertheless, did some sightseeing in this (to us) unknown part of Kyoto and visited some temples and shrines:

At one temple we had the chance to lit a small candle
that looked like a water lily ^-^

it was very windy, so Jessica and Nici had to hold there hands over it to protect it from the wind

When we came to the next street map, we realised how far we still had to walk to finally get to the places we wanted to.. it was so hot that day and our feet already hurt..
so we decided to take a bus x3

Riding buses in Japan is pretty much reverse from riding buses in Germany xD
In Germany, you enter through the front door, pay before the ride and leave the bus through the back door. In Japan, you enter the bus through the back door, exit through the front door and pay when you leave the bus x'D

 When we finally arrived in Gion, we did not see much of the traditional japanese houses because it was very very crowded. So we visited a nearby shrine and then wanted to go to the Philosopher's Path. And again we had to learn that Japanese street maps are not accurate in any way q.q This time, we walked to the right direction but this path was like 20-times as far away as the map had shown us >.<

We resigned after half of the way and tried to get back by bus to at least take a look at Kinkakuji. The bus rode took so long this time as the bus had to cross the whole town and there were lots of traffic jams. When we arrived, it was 5.10 pm and the parc with the temple closes its gates at 5 pm ........ 
So everything we saw was this sign:

That basically is why we went there a second time xD

But we still did not have a better time than before as it started to rain heavily as soon as we got off the train in Kyoto.. But we made all the way so we went to Kinkakuji nevertheless.
We went by bus again and when we got out, we bought umbrellas first. 

 
I tried to catch all this water in pictures but you can't see it well..

Every street we had to cross was flooded and my shoes and feet were completely wet after just 10 meters walking x'D But we didn't let that ruin our sightseeing trip x3
And also Kinkakuji is really really pretty in the rain ^.^

(The yellow tube you can see in our hands is called "Rei in der Tube". 
It's a washing detergent for travelling and you can use it to wash your laundry
by hand in a sink. At this moment, they had a competition where you could get
the money for your trip back when you sent them a photo of you and "Rei in der Tube"
at your travel destination. But in the end, we forgot to send the pictures in...)

And again, Nici was taking a photo of me trying to take a selfie x'D

 After buying some souvenirs and lucky charms at the temple,
we went back to the city centre by bus and went to Starbucks to get some hot drinks.
When we left for Kyoto in the morning, it was like 32°C and after the rain
not more than 20° and it was so so cold as we where all wet.
After having a hot cocoa, we felt hungry and made a stop at my favourite
fast-food store 'Mos Burger'

I ordered a Rice-Kinpira Burger, Chips and Melon Soda ♥

As the rain did not stop, we spent the rest of the day in an arcade centre xD
Again, I didn't win anything at the Ufo-Catchers but it still was fun ^.^
And they had a nice washroom decoration:

And these were our adventures in Kyoto xD
Despite the rain and all the other things that didn't work out as we wanted,
it is a beautiful city and I hope I can come back one day !

However, thank you for reading (^-^)v