At Tomomi's place Day 4 ~ Uji & Bowling

Next day Tomomi and I took a trip to Uji (Kyoto area). I wanted to go there because this is the city of Matcha. Uji is famous for its Matcha tea and products. We could also go there by train. With JR lines and a change in Nara we arrived there after one and a half hour. First we visited Byoudoin temple. It's a world herritage and it is the temple you see on the 10 Yen coin^^

It is very beautiful and also the park sorounding it was very nice. There was also a little temple museum. Entrance fee for park, temple and museum was 600 Yen. For entering the temple you needed to pay another 300 Yen but we didn't enter.

byoudoin temple

Before we went for shopping Matcha stuff (oh my God, I already saw that I would spend plenty of money here... XD) we searched for a restaurant for having lunch. On the way to the temple I saw a nice Matcha Café, so I suggested to go there. Tomomi didn't mind, so we waited in line to be seated. It was small and very crowded and normally I didn't want to wait but because of the many people it had to be very good and I really longed for the offered Matcha pancakes^.^

Tomomi chose the Udon soup made of Matcha noodles and we were happy to get our lunch. And it was really amazing!!! It was worth waiting!

the small Matcha Café

Matcha pancakes with Matcha icecream, cream and anko *_*

Then I was totally motivated to check out all the Matcha shops X3
The whole street from the train station to the temple was full with Matcha shops. First we went to the river to start our shopping trip there. At the riverside is also a beautful stone pagoda^^

stone pagoda

Then we went in almost every shop which sells Matcha *muahahaha*
And I really bought much stuff: Matcha powder for cooking and baking, Matcha Curry (!), Matcha cookies, buns and Yatsuhashi X3

my Matcha stuff X3

After this successful trip we returned back home and had an hour to relax before we would meet Tomomi's colleagues and go bowling.

~*~

The bowling was totally fun! It was the same as in Germany and although I haven't played for two yours now or so I was quite good XD We made three teams with two members each (in the first round we decided based on the points who plays together), that was really cool. Tanaka-san and I won^o^

everyone at the bowling alley^^

Afterwards we went for dinner. They chose a Yakiniku restaurant (kind of Korean bbq) near the bowling center. It was delicious but I wouldn't recommend it. Even the bibimbab we also ordered wasn't like I know it from Korea.

making yakiniku

group picture^^v

The evening was totally funny, I really like her colleagues and I'm already looking forward to meet them again^.^