Everyone travelling to Kyoto!

Today is the day we travelled from Shinagawa to Kyoto via bullet train. Our original plan was to get on a train at 11am after checking out of the hotel around 10am. However, the trains were all full at 11 so we had to switch to a 2pm train. This game us roughly 3 hours between checking out of the hotel and heading to the train station. So after eating some ramen at the food court within the hotel, me and my group went to the aquarium!

Lunch before Kyoto!

The aquarium was so cool to see! There were all kinds of animals there, not even just fish. It was a tad bit pricier than typical aquariums in the U.S., but the quality of the exhibits and, from what I can tell, the treatment of the animals is far better. There were capybaras, stingray, sharks of all kinds, jellyfish, coral reef fish, otters, frogs, piranhas, and even more. We didn’t get a chance to see the bigger fish, like the dolphins, because the exhibits were later, but I’m ok with that. We did get to see an otter show, which was so cute!

Otter show! The otter was catching a ball thrown at him 🙂

The aquarium was split into many different sections, including a jungle section which included most of the land animals. We also saw another group of students in the aquarium at the same time as us! My favorite animal exhibit was either the seals or the otters because they were sooo cute. After seeing all the exhibits we went through the gift shop to look around, but things were a bit pricey (as to be expected). After leaving the aquarium we went to 7/11 to get ice cream, which was super tasty, then we headed back to the hotel lobby to wait until we went to the train station. The train ride went pretty smoothly with the group and was a nice, comfortable ride (I played Tears of the Kingdom the whole time).

One of the seals doing laps upside down!

After arriving in Kyoto we met up with our friends from KCG and loaded our bags into the bus we would take to the hotel later. Before going to the hotel we had dinner in this really fancy restaurant that must have costed a lot of money, so I am very thankful for the opportunity! The dinner was 10 courses and each were so, so good. The first course was an assortment of seafood and vegetables. I got to eat 7 baby squids because no one liked them :). The second course was an assortment of fish served with wasabi and shiso, which was very scrumptious. Dish three was vegetables boiled in a really yummy broth that was set on a flame on our table! Dish number four was a pork belly and lettuce plate that very special instructions. The server came and lit the fire under neath a bowl of oil, then we put all of our lettuce in the bowl and waited 3-5 minutes. After the time was up we were able to put the pork belly into the oil one slice at a time to cook it, then dip it in the sauce to eat. This was one of my favorite dishes of the night! The fifth course was a salad with avocados, lettuce, and tomatoes. Course six was tempura shrimp and vegetables, which was absolutely amazing. I wasn’t a huge fan of the circular vegetable but everything else was yummy. Course number seven was a tofu gelatin dish that I did not enjoy very much, as much as I hate to say it. Dish 8 was sushi made right in front of us by the head chef of the restaurant! Some students even made the sushi themselves! The sushi was great and the staff were wonderful. Course 9 was an egg broth that was very good. The final course was desert, which was vanilla and soy ice cream! Really liked this one, haha :).

The many courses of the night! (Reverse order, starts with 10)

After dinner we got on the bus from earlier and headed to our hotel! I took a bath, had a meeting, then clonked out! Day 2 done 🙂