Mr. & Mrs. Carreiro around the world

 Helooo!

#3monthsinjapanseries is back with the story "14 days in Kyoto".

If you haven't read 14 Days in Osaka yet, don't forget to check it out.

How to go Kyoto?

From Osaka it takes around an hour to go to Kyoto by train. Or maybe more it depends on the train that you choose.

Where did we stay?

We stay at Hotel M's Est Nanajo near Shichijo station. It's also close to Kyoto station. In my personal opinion this hotel also nice because they have a strategic location and of course you don't need to worry about food! Across this hotel there's a seven eleven and fruits store, Mcd, cafes, and restaurants nearby.

Top Attractiions

In Kyoto we went out almost everyday. So I couldn't really recall all the places that we visited. But here some list for your reference:

• Arashiyama Bamboo Forest, Togetsu-kyo bridge, Tenryuji, Gioji
• Fushimi Inari Taisha
• Kiyomizudera
• Gion District
• Nishiki Market
• Kyoto Imperial Palace
• Yasaka shrine, Philosopher's path, Eikan-do temple etc.

Gyukatsu Kyoto - My Fave

Gyukatsu Kyoto Katsugyu

• Bento in a combini cost around JPY 600/portion
• Beef bowl in Sukiya/Yoshinoya cost around JPY 600/pax
• Mcd bigmac set cost around JPY 650/pax
• Burger King set around JPY 400/pax
• Kfc set cost around JPY 1000/pax
• If you eat in a foodcourt it will cost around min. JPY 1000/pax
• Well if it's in a restaurant it depends on what you order. They usually have a lunch or dinner set. Better to order set menu than a la carte.

Halal Ramen Ayam-ya Karasuma Kyoto

Ayam-ya Karasuma Kyoto

Seafood in Nishiki Market

Here is the food that we tried in Kyoto:

Soft Matcha Icecream

Yum!

We bought this near Kiyomizu-dera

Konpeito from Kyoto is famous

 Hi, how have you been?

I'm back with new travel story. #exploreJapanfor3months

We decided to travel and explore Japan for 3 months. Cool right! haha

Why Japan? because hubby said he wants to enjoy and explore Japan more. Hubby is so lucky btw, He can stay in Japan without visa for 3 months. But for me, I had to apply visa and specify that we will travel for 3 months. I thought it would be complicated but thank God it was fast and easy. I got my visa approval like in 5 days. Yay!

Dotonbori: the famous 10 yen coin toast

Before I applied visa, we already prepared everything e.g. hotel reservation, itinerary, and flight information. You have to prepare in advance since it's the requirements to apply visa. So we already booked our hotel and plan which city that  we're going to visit.

Here is our schedule in Japan :

• 14 days in Osaka area
• 14 days in Kyoto area
• 7 days in Sendai area
• The rest is Tokyo. Yup almost 2 months here haha

Why we didn't really travel and explore from the bottom until upper area? It's because we want to  keep it for the future. So we'll have a reason to come back to Japan one day :D

So let's start with 14 days in Osaka area story!

We  arrived in Japan  on 15 January and it's so cold! but in the beginning we didn't really feel it because we have our luggage and  so busy to go to the hotel. 

What to prepare?

• Of course money :D, well in our opinion it's still affordable. It depends on your lifestyle :P
• Exercise is very important as we will walk so much in Japan. Even if we use metro but still trust me you'll walk so much.
• Patience. Here you need to be patient as queueing is one of their culture. For example for lunch or dinner in a resto, you'll find a long queueing :D you have to wait and put your name on the list. Not only resto actually café, stalls etc. Esp. If it's famous.

Where to stay?

We stayed in Porta Inn Tanimachi 9chome. It was a nice hotel  in a strategic location. It's so close to the station and there's a seven eleven (convenient store) downstairs. It's also close to Dotonbori and Kuromon market. Very nice and recommended.

Why 14 days in Osaka?

Basically,  in our opinion one week is more than enough but we wanted to have a slow travel and we didn't want to be in a rush.  So we decided to stay for 14 days.

Where did we go?

For your recommendation, you  can check our rough itinerary as follows:

• Dotonbori and Kuromon Market

Dotonbori Osaka

Kuromon Market

• Osaka Caste and Osaka Tenmangu
• Shitennoji, Tsutenkaku, Tennoji Park, Denden Town
• Nagai Park
• Visiting Kobe
• Visiting Nara
• Universal Studio Japan
• Osaka Korea Town and the rest we're just strolling around enjoying our time 

What we eat?

There are so many places to try. It depends on what you like. To be honest I'm a picky eater so I don't really like soba or udon but we tried anyway. Here's the list the food that we usually eat :D

• Seven Eleven Bento (Affordable n no need to go far to get it) 
• Famichiki (FamilyMart) and Onigiri for lunch (easy to eat and no need to queue as we also wanted to eat it in the park.
• StreetFood in Kuromon Market e.g. seafood, crab gratin, etc
• Streetfood in Dotonbori e.g. 10yen coin toast, Takoyaki, Grilled squid with cheese etc.

Takoyaki

squid with egg and cheese

• Kobe beef and hamburg steak (we went to Kobe and tried the famous kobe beef)
• Mitarashii dango for snacking and the famous Yomogi Mochi from Nakatanidou
• Honolu Halal Ramen

We enjoyed our slow travel in Osaka and now missing it already. Worth to visit.

That's all 14 days in Osaka. 

It's very short huh? yep because now I want to share the story thru video. So we will prepare the video and share it here next time for all of you to enjoy. :)

See you soon with 14 Days in Kyoto :)

xx