Friday! Last day of the trip, and it started gloriously with a breakfast at Denny's! We both got an egg, a thing that might have been ham/bacon, and something like sausage that was more like a mini hot dog. The meal came with pancakes and a drink, and I got ice coffee. It was very good, and it made me miss American breakfast.
After breakfast, we went to the science museum that we had found the previous day. They were having a special exhibit on candy, and we couldn't stop thinking about Candy Land. I told Tyler how the chocolate mud monster scared me as a child, and how I never properly learned how to play the game. I don't know how! I need to try again someday.
The candy exhibit didn't have any English explanations. It went through where sugar comes from, how to harvest it and such, and then went to explain candy making processes, how potato chips are made, how chocolate is made, how hmm other things are made that are sweet. There was a cookie icing activity for kids for a fee, but the cookies looked really small so we skipped that. There were also really fancy professional cakes and models of things made out of sugar on display.
The best part was the little store at the end where you could buy candy. I bought a few little things including two boxes of gum that I buy a lot at Jungle Jim's.
After the candy exhibit, we explored the permanent exhibits and played with the toys and watched the little children get really excited about everything. Also, no English explanations, but hey with a civil and a mechanical engineer who both have really big brains, you don't really need any explanations.
It was a good science-y time. We miss COSI.
Surprise, surprise, I was hungry again after the museum. We saw an Indian restaurant on our way to the museum so we decided to go back there to eat. Unfortunately, they were closed because it was that awkward time between lunch and dinner when most restaurants in Japan are closed. I really wanted Indian food so we decided to wait.
We walked to pass the time and found another bookstore to peruse. I miss hanging out in Barnes and Noble. I was getting hungrier and hungrier. I felt like I might pass out! Oh no! But thankfully, books are very distracting. Before I knew it, it was time to walk back to the restaurant.
We were the only ones dining at the moment, and we both ordered the same dinner set. I don't know the names of many Indian foods except hmm naan, so I can't tell you what we ate, but it was delicious. While we were eating another couple came in and sat down. Tyler commented how that a lot of foreign restaurants don't seem to do very well in Japan, except for the fast food types like McDonald's/KFC, etc. I've noticed it to and it's a little sad to me. At the taco place in Hiroshima, there were only non-Japanese dining while we were there. I guess we are just used to being able to eat almost any type of cuisine in America. I miss the variety so much! Even if most of it is Americanized.
After dinner, we did more walking and wandering and didn't get lost which was good. Then it was time to head back to the hotel for bed. Tyler wanted to leave early on Saturday because he had an almost 7 hour train ride back to Tokyo! I only had a 3.5 hour ride back to Nara.
So it was sleepy time, and then in the morning a last trip to Mister Donut for some breakfast, and we were off.
The ride home seemed to go by very quickly. I may just have been really tired and didn't notice. But I had to stand 2/3 of the way because there weren't any seats. That wasn't much fun. I got home, unpacked and did laundry, and then decided to go back up to Kyoto to see the Fushimi Inari shrine with has thousands of torii gates lined up in a path next to each other. I am not sure about the thousands number, but they have MANY. They guide you up a hill, but I was tired and lazy and didn't make it up. The path winds in a circle, and I barely made it to the beginning of the circle. I got plenty of pictures of the torii gates to show you how many they are! It's like mating rabbits! They look like they just keep popping out of the ground.
Later in the day I finally came home and went to bed. It was a great week.
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