expiration date 

the afternoon nap took a whole lot longer than we planned. we woke up at 9PM! i guess we were very tired from all that walking.

since it was late and we haven’t had dinner yet, we looked around for a dinner place that opens late. Izakaya (Japanese bar that serves mostly roasted food) was a good idea. my feet were still in pain, so we opted to go to one near the Kyoto Station, which is within walking distance from our ryokan.

various chicken yakitori + ikayaki



horse sashimi



cod womb sashimi

so, we ordered beer and the typical stuff like chicken yakitori and ikayaki (ari is an ikayaki fan… whenever there is ikayaki on the menu, he just has to have it). the chicken yakitori was tasty. it was from various parts of a chicken. gizzards, skin, and the regular meat, i think. but the ikayaki was yummy! the sauce was tasty and the squid meat was not chewy at all… we loved it!

but then, we found out that they serve horse sashimi… yay! i’ve been dying to try this! so we ordered one plate of it, too. and, damn, it was delicious! it came with a brown sauce that has a pretty strong wine-ish taste. and the meat itself is very nice. lean, although a little chewy.

we’re, of course, still hungry. so we looked through the menu (they have an English menu!) and saw “Cod Womb Omelette”… so we tried it. yay, we found another delicious dish! it was served on a hot plate where the bottom layer is the Cod roe (is it Mentaiko?) and the next layer is cheese covered by the top layer of baked scrambled eggs. this last dish filled us up. and was perfect with beer, too :)

this izakaya is more modern than the regular izakaya. the settings reminds me of English pubs i went to when i was living in Birmingham, England. yeah, not your typical izakaya. but the atmosphere was great. there were two co-workers (a man and a woman) next to ari who got more and more “comfortable” with each other as the beer flowed. they came in looking like two co-workers and came out looking like two couples on a honeymoon. cute!

we then went back to the ryokan and filled up the bathtub halfway with hot water. then i put my feet in, hoping that it would help getting rid of the pain. it sorta worked. the next day, the pain didn’t bother me that much.

photo album: Japan Trip: Day 2 (25 December 2005).