Even though day 6 was a Saturday, it started out with me being in school as I still had half a day of classes. This had me slightly irritated but all was still fine because today I was planning on travelling out on my own! All I needed to do was get to Kyoto station to buy a sim card (up till now I was surviving on the Travel Japan free wifi app with a premium code given to me at the airport) and take a train to my destination.
Having hotspots in convenience stores was really, well, convenient since they are literally everywhere in Japan.
A couple of my friends were also going to Kyoto station, so I decided to tag along with them. But before that, we needed to grab lunch, and just outside the university, there’s a really popular ramen restaurant. How convenient right?
There was a queue, but there were only about 10 people in it. We thought that we would only have to wait for half an hour at maximum, and a queue during lunch hour is unavoidable anyway. So we waited. And waited. And waited for an hour. Seriously, an hour for 10 people. We didn’t realise until it was too late that this restaurant is tiny (there were only enough seats for about 8 people). By the time it was our turn, I was basically starving. We were told by the staff to make an order first.
The staff then asked us if we wanted less oil or salt but I just ordered the normal one. That was a mistake, it was too salty for my taste. But other than that the broth was really rich and thick, and the toppings were really nice too.
By the time we were done eating and reached kyoto station (it takes 40 minutes by bus) it was already 3.30 pm- it was far too late to go to the place I had initially planned (I did end up travelling to this place on a later date so I won’t say where for now~). This really bummed me out but at least I could now explore Kyoto station and get some work done. Kyoto station is huge, filled with shops and rows of platforms for both local trains and shinkansen. It was also painfully crowded with hoards of travellers.
We headed towards Bic camera to get sim cards, where I ended up buying the sim with 1 gb data. The 1 gb one was rather expensive (roughly 2000 yen) compared to the 5 gb one (roughly 3000 yen), but I really didn’t need that much data.
It also comes with origami paper, a folding screen (how cute right) and a premium code for the travel japan app.
We then continued doing a bit of window shopping, looking around at toys and games at Bic camera.
We also browsed through a bit of manga at kyoto station (not that we could fully understand anything anyway)
We then decided to walk to Aeon mall which was 2 minutes away. While walking there we got distracted by a shrine nearby, mostly because google maps claimed that it was fushimi inari (they probably just share the same name but it really confused us for a while)
We then walked around a bit in Aeon mall. There was an arcade there with tons of claw machines but I didn’t have enough money that day (no worries I returned on another day) Since Fantastic beasts and where to find them had just released, there was a lot of Harry Potter merchandise.
Another great day, but I was still kind of sad from having my plans ruined. Oh well. We walked a total of 18397 steps, which is why we were so tired we ended up buying dinner back (yay 7/11 food).
Blubbyweb 