Japan Winter 2019 - Part 2 Kyoto Sweet Escape Experience

Take only memories, leave only footprints. This phrase has been repeated over and again, especially amongst travellers. What better way to take memories back than having our family pictures taken by a pro, so every one of us could be in the picture? For that reason, my sister and I booked Sweet Escape, a company that connects people to local photographers. We purposely booked this photo session on the first full day of our trip so we were all still energetic ;)

When we got to Gion area, our appointment with the photographer was still a couple of hours away. We crossed the river and had ramen at a small ramen-ya, and then we walked to Fuji Daimaru to try the instagram-famous % Arabica coffee. My sister bought a cup and I decided that I didn't like it so I didn't bother lining up to buy one for myself. Instead, my mom and I walked around to see the shopping street. We found a fabric store! It was so tempting to buy some fabric but I didn't want to drag it along with me for the rest of the day.

At the appointed time and place, we met up with our photographer who turned out to be an Indonesian living in Kyoto. We followed him to a few different spots for picture taking. We took large group pictures as well as small group pictures. You can see some of the result closer to the end of this post. Meanwhile, these are some pictures taken with our humble Olympus Pen (or iPhone).

And the non-watermarked pictures below are from Sweet Escape.

We finished our photo session when it was almost sunset, so we walked towards Hanamikoji via Yasaka Shrine with our photographer and parted ways.

We were fairly tired at that time, so we decided to have dinner and retire for the evening. Maguro Factory was a restaurant that I had wanted to try because I saw pictures and videos of it on Instagram. It wasn't busy when we got there, we sat and were told that there is a cover charge for everyone and you get a free appetizer for it. On top of that, everyone has to order a drink. We ordered various dishes on top of the drinks and appetizers, but unfortunately nothing was as impressive as it seemed. To be honest, it was rather disappointing. Not to mention expensive!!

Going back to the hotel, we went separate ways. DH and Miss Kiki walked along the river, my sister and the bf went out, and I took Oma and Opa back to Kyoto Station with train. We took a little bit of time at Kyoto Station to see the extremely tall christmas tree and the lit up staircase that goes up to the 10th floor. Of course, you can't miss the Kyoto Tower.