Bicycling Japan: D6-D7

Day 6: Lake Biwa to Kyoto (~25 miles)

We decided to "cheat" a little and take the bridge located at the bottom of the lake so we didn't have to ride around it to get to Kyoto. The bridge was really nice, equipped with a pretty substantial pedestrian/bike path on the side (I don't care if this is the result of some crony building infrastructure to get money, but the ped/bike paths were aMazing).

The beautiful bridge (pic by Jason)

....too bad it was uphill

On our way to our destination, Jason, who has an eye for anything bicycle related spotted a "keirin-jo", or a bike racing track. We sneaked a peak and J even caught a guy training on the tracks. Pretty cool.

Unfortunately, we happened upon Kyoto right at the start of  Golden Week , meaning our chances of of getting any beds at a hostel were slim to none. Somehow, the bum camping gods were with us, because we were able to acquire TWO nights at the same hostel! yippee. The parks were nice and all, but nothing beats a soft bed.

The folks at the hostel told us about a vegetarian restaurant called Sunshine Cafe, which had really good food and amazing interior decor. Afterwards, we wandered around the downtown area, had a snack, and checked out Gion, but didn't come across any Geishas. darn.

Din din at Sunshine Cafe. 

Ladies preparing "nori-mochi", delicious grilled mochi wrapped in nori. 

It was like, amazing.

Antique Taxi.

Day 7: Walking around Kyoto

The next day, we devoted to walking/biking around Kyoto. Given the massive number of people in the city, it was a bit challenging to get around and find things but we were able to see Kiyomizu-dera, a really impressive temple a bit higher up the hill and also check out the Kyoto University campus. We also befriended a young Mexican guy who was traveling around Japan and was at the same hostel as us and had dinner with him. He had stayed at a capsule hotel in Tokyo, which sparked our interest for a future stay.

Went by a knife shop. It was amazing!!! I went and done bought a knife too--at a smaller, more quite knife shop. So excited.

Octupi on a stick!

Sesame frozen yogurt!

Kaiten-yaki: flour pankakes filled with sweet bean. Ohhh drool. The machine was pretty cool too. The guy in the back is delicately snipping off the little edges that stick out so that the final product is perfect.

Rows and rows of pickled veggies.

Rows and rows of fresh tea....

...and of course, why not end your day with this notice by your hostel bunk? WTF???? (in Japanese, "sit" is pronounced "shit". I'm giving them a big benefit of the doubt here)