Day 8: Kyoto (evening)

On the way back, we discovered a side street that avoided us the crowds and the shops and walked to a bus stop. Unfortunately, as it was rush hour, most of the buses were full and not taking additional passengers, so we decided to walk the 2km back to the station. We spotted a lovely sunset over the streets of Kyoto that reminded me of the trilogy Always on Sunset Street.

We thought about eating dinner in Kyoto, but we managed to secure reserved seats on the Thunderbird which took us all the way back to Osaka station. We managed to get lost again in the underground walkways and but managed to find a good place for dinner, where they had a cheap set menu consisting of staple Japanese favourites such as hamburg patty, potato croquette and ebi fry. This is also another restaurant that seemed to be populated mostly by young females with hardly a male in sight. After dinner, we explored the other restaurants around Hankyu Sanbangai. From what I can figure out, girls generally prefer brightly coloured places that served a variety of food accompanied with salad and guys generally preferred the darker type establishments with more meaty dishes. It’s interesting to see gender segregation even in the type of eating places favoured by each sex.

We finally reached our hotel completely exhausted after walking 25,000 steps and were just a bit sad that this was our last night in Osaka and tomorrow we will be heading back to Tokyo and then soon it will be the end of the trip.