Japan Day 10: Kitano Tenmangu Shrine, Yokai Street, Shinkyogoku, Sake Insider Tasting

Because of how awful I felt the previous night, we decided to take it easy, first visiting Kitano Tenmangu Shrine, and walking along Yokai Street to hunt for Yokai. They were very cute. Each Yokai represented the shop and what it sold. One of the shopkeepers explained to us that a festival was going to happen on October 19th where people dress up as Yokai and parade down that street. Too bad we were going to miss it.

After, we walked along Shinkyogoku where I got a haori and ate lunch. We ended up in a small restaurant where I had a simple rice bowl with egg, and gauged how I felt. Kotaro-san from the Sake Tasting Experience had messaged us that it was unfortunate we could not go yesterday, and invited us to go that night instead. Of course, we were happy for the invitation. After lunch, we had ice cream melon pan for dessert. 

We returned to our AirBnB for a rest, and thank goodness it finally rained! The rain helped with the heat, and my head, and after a bit of rest, we jet off to our Kyoto Insider Sake Experience to have some sake.

This was such a fun time! We tried 7 different types of sake. 3 of which were differently made. Unpasteurized, unfiltered, and aged. The aged sake was absolutely delicious. It tasted like roasted almonds! We had it with ice cream and it tasted exactly like vanilla ice cream and bailey's! We found out that we like Junmai nihonshu (Japanese sake), but I like them tasting less polished and more like rice, while Moose likes them lighter and fruitier. We even tried the different sake with different food pairings! Kotaro-san was a great teacher, and it was a fun group. We made jokes, and laughed a lot. It was a good time, and we went home feeling great.

(Complete photo album here)