Visiting Kyoto's Famous Nishiki Market

After our okonomiyaki lunch, we explored Nishiki Market (錦市場) with our friends L and M. This is one of Kyoto’s most famous sites, known for it’s well reputed food and goods vendors, but in all honestly, it was insane. We were there two days before New Years Eve --- the busiest time of the year. I cannot even begin to truly convey the number of people present. Once you were in the crowd, you could barely move, like sardines packed in a can. Even still, that metaphor doesn’t quite describe the chaos and volume of people present at Nishiki Market. At one point, we were actually trapped in gridlock traffic! No one moved and all there was was pushing in all directions. Not fun.

Anyway, although the high volume of people made exploring the market difficult, it was still a lot of fun to see all of the different food, produce, and goods vendors. Between the seafood stalls, the meat stalls, the pickle stalls, the tofu stalls, the prepared food stalls, snack stalls --- there was so much to see, purchase, and taste! We had a marvelous time! I'd love to come back when it is less crowded. 
Various oden on a stick
Fresh oysters
Cute geisha dolls
Warabi mochi

Various preserved foods
Fresh mochi
Making osenbei (rice crackers)
Freshly grated katsuobushi
Nibbles
Pickles
Baby octopus on a stick
Ikura and other preserved seafood
Yuba chips
Very cute doughnuts


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