Uji matcha♥ #Kyototravelmemories #obsessedwithmatcha #theloveisreal #relaxingteabreak #traveltreats #TBT

The matcha the duck and I currently use claims to be from Uji. So, whenever we make ourselves a relaxing cup of oat matcha latte, we remember that time we enjoyed a delicious cup of Uji matcha in Uji, “the town where the most beautiful matcha lives”(according to some weirdo in a video)! We briefly mentioned this mouthwatering matcha memory in the audiovisual report about our short Kyoto stint many years ago. However, we think it’s too deliciously beautiful to not share again. Uji was one of the last stops during our cold Kyoto autumn adventure. Sitting at that charming tea shop called Ocha no Kanbayashi, enjoying a cup of Uji matcha, and chatting with our lovely Kyoto travel companions made the duck and me sad that this terrific trip was ending. It did make for one of our favorite Japan memories, though, visual and culinary (not for the cold, however, that we still felt in our bones days after we had returned to Tokyo). Five (aromatic tea) leaves for this extraordinary experience! 🍃♥🍁♥🍃

The duck and I can’t wait for our next Japan adventure – whenever that may be.
What are your favorite gustatory memories?

∼·✧Kyoto coffee✧·∼ #fancyblackcoffee #prettydrinkprettycup #Kyototourist #autumncoffeebreak #TBT

It’s all about coffee with the duck and me! Recently we’ve begun reminiscing about one of the most expensive, but also fanciest, cups of black coffee we’ve enjoyed when we were in Kyoto foraging for fine foliage almost three years ago; after having seen lots of leaves and a few shrines and temples, accompanied by icy December winds, we decided to stop for some afternoon coffee on Shijo-dori, the road that leads to the infamous gate of Yasaka shrine (that we featured in our Kyoto travel video). Kyosendō is a sweets shop and cafe that is more famous for its traditional Japanese sweets and green tea desserts than for its coffee, but the duck and I were in a cheap mood, so we decided to go with the ‘hot coffee’ that ran somewhere between 600 and 800 yen, a relatively common price for a cup of black coffee- but this one came with a fancy coconut cookie and have you seen the sugar?! The lovely Japanese stoneware cup, the nice atmosphere and the feeling of being (back) in Kyoto – with amazing travel buddies! – made this experience wonderfully memorable and particularly delightful. 4/5 colorful leaves for a cup of black coffee with a price that made us feel truly fancy. •✧•✧•·

The duck and I tend to have rather vivid memories of a lot of the things we’ve eaten outside our home, especially the pricier ones. It seems as if, subconsciously, we force ourselves to remember all the drinks and food we decided to spend money on despite their (for our means) scary price tags. Well, the duck and I love reliving beautiful memories, so we’re not complaining!

Neighborhood cats

If there is one thing that the duck and I love the most about living in Japan, it’s neighborhood cats! Sure, neighborhood cats are not exclusive to Japan, but nowhere else did we get to take so many close-up photos of them. Just look at how chill the two cats we came across in Kyoto are!

In fact, the cats in our neighborhood are so laid-back that they don’t even budge when we walk past them while they are sunbathing on parked cars, verandas or on a sheet in front of my window (my favorite neighbor by far). Only when they feel a threat from the duck and my gazing eyes will they move and continue living their chill lives someplace else (in the neighborhood). Doing some internet research, but mostly just going about our everyday lives, the duck and I have learned a few things about stray cats in Japan, or, at least, parts of Tokyo, that we want to share on here. Selecting a photographic accompaniment was particularly hard as we’ve taken a lot of neighborhood cat photos throughout the months. But we tried:

♥ Matcha Cream Puff #ifCinnamonandMatchahadaBaby #deliciousKyoto #greenteagoodness #touristlife #TBT

As a conclusion to our recent collection of Kyoto posts we’re going to use our cheesy (well… not in this case, eh?) food photo format to reminisce about that matcha cream puff we had the pleasure of devouring right after watching the sunset at Kiyomizudera.

About two months ago, when we were adventuring through Kyoto with all its matcha flavored delicacies we couldn’t resist trying one of those beautiful matcha-filled cream puffs at Kiyomizukyoami!
The cinnamon pastry around the only slightly sweet and bitter filling reminded a bit of the cinnamon yatsuhashi we had tried earlier during our trip and the matcha just elevated this treat to an all new level of amazing. 4/5 ducks with little heart eyes for a wonderful way to end a day of adventuring! ♥ ♥

I wish our relationship to ice cream was better and that the temperatures hadn’t been as low as they were – because our true Kyoto food love was supposed to be dark, bittersweet matcha soft serve ice cream. But the duck and I are weak. Way too weak…

Seeing off Autumn in Kyoto

Now that we’re in the middle of winter and constantly complaining about the cold, the duck and I thought that it’s the perfect time to look back on our little trip to Kyoto back in December (where it was also freezing, but at least it was still fall). Of course we took my camera with us to document all the pretty sights we were sure we would come across. And I’m super glad we did because now we can share all those pretty things we got to see with everyone who has found their way onto this blog:

The camera work is still pretty shaky, but editing this filled me with so much joy (this is definitely my favorite video editing adventure on this blog so far – well, it was, until it took me two days to figure out how to export the video with kinda decent audio levels) because autumn is the duck and my favorite season and autumn in Kyoto with wonderful company adds at least three extra layers of awesome on top of our love for it (and all its food)!
But, man, Kyoto sure was cold! And, even though we did miss the peak of the autumn leaves (紅葉) which, we thought, would leave us with fewer tourists because the very keen would have come in November, we learned a valuable lesson during our trip:

In Kyoto it’s always peak season!

That’s unbeleafable!

Snacks: Yatsuhashi

During our trip to Kyoto last December (and after all that worrying about the perfect omiyage) the duck and I found the perfect snack to bring back to Tokyo within our first few hours in the old capital: yatsuhashi! During a previous visit in summer a few years back I already had the pleasure of trying a few variations of the raw version (don’t look at me like that, duck! You got to try plenty near Kiyomizudera in December!) but with the cool temperatures, and Christmas only being a few weeks away, we knew that it had to be the baked cinnamon version this time!
Because it’s been far too long since our last super professional taste test, the duck and I just couldn’t help but put in our own two yen. So, here goes:

Kyoto reflections

Earlier this week the duck and I went on a little trip to Kyoto. The initial plan was to go autumn leaves watching but, unfortunately, we were a bit too late for seeing the city drenched in a wonderful and completely harmless red. However, together with the foliage peak season, we also missed the tourist peak season which means that we could walk and admire without any major hindrance, except for the freezing temperatures – especially unforgiving at our first sightseeing stop, Arashiyama. Further adventures led us through beautiful shrines and temples (like Kiyomizu temple – perfect for sunset-watching), hundreds of gates up the hill at Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine, scenic paths and streets (such as the beautiful backstreets of Gion), tasty tourist snack sampling shops (loved the matcha shops in Uji) and, of course, from restaurant to restaurant (my favorite fried dinner we had in Osaka, though) and through way too much money.
Of course, we also took lots of touristy pictures, our personal versions of everything you can find on the internet or in travel guides. We’ll spare you most of those. Instead, as the title of this post says, we present to you a few (some more, others less ambiguous) reflections of some of Kyoto’s most popular tourist spots. Can you guess where we captured them?

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As for written reflections: Going to Kyoto was probably the highlight of our stay in Japan so far (also, literally – those three days were so incredibly sunny that we probably collected our monthly dose of vitamin D just walking around Kyoto); we had the most amazing company and equally amazing and hilarious experiences together.
My number one hilarious experience related to the trip, however, I made when we had just returned to Tokyo: When I was running up the stairs to the train platform I tripped – my untrained legs still a bit angry about the sudden flashback of all those stairs at Fushimi Inari shrine. This, my children, is the perfect time to remind you that you do not want to be those foreigners whose faces make acquaintance with the ground after attempting to run and catch a train!

Also, we recorded some shaky footage on our trip, so prepare for another installment of “the duck explores new places captured by the camera of an inflatable air dancer” sometime when fall is long gone. Maybe. If we’re not lazy.

We’ll go back to reflecting on our life and stair choices now!