10/31 was our first full day in Kyoto, which feels different from Tokyo. No longer are we surrounded by towering skyscrapers, and it’s not uncommon to see people walking around in traditional clothing like kimonos.
We started the day at the Fushimi Inari Shrine. It’s the head shrine of Inari, but it’s well known for its mountain trails, which are lined with thousands of red torii gates and several shrines along the way. The gates look plain on the way up, but then you look back and realize they all have writing on the other side.
It’s a beautiful walk, though pretty tiring to reach the summit. (My FitBit claimed I climbed over 100 floors!) Part way up, there’s a clearing where you can get a great view of Kyoto. They also cleverly sell ice cream here, which many tourists (like us) buy after the tiring walk. We took a break here before going up to the summit and then back down. (The summit doesn’t have a view.)
It was around 1:00pm by the time we reached the bottom, so we bought food at nearby stands. We got yakitori (grilled chicken skewers), takoyaki (octopus balls), and taiyaki (fish shaped cake with filling). I love street food in Japan 😀
Along the same train line is a temple called Tofukuji. The temple wasn’t close by the station though, so we walked a bit before we found it. It’s supposed to be beautiful when the leaves change for autumn, but it was still too early for that. We walked through the garden and trails, which were both small. It was kind of nice, though I wished we timed this trip better.
It started to rain a little at 3:30pm, so we headed back to the hotel to rest. I looked up ramen places and found Ramen Koji. It’s a floor connected to Kyoto station with 8 ramen restaurants, each one representing a different regional style. That sounded amazing, so we went for dinner and got Miso ramen at Sumire. This was one of the best ramens we had on the trip! We were determined to come back and try the other styles 🙂
The next day (11/01), we checked out of the Westin Miyako at the edge of town and into the Kyoto Royal Hotel & Spa in the heart of the city. (I couldn’t find a hotel for 6 nights straight, so I booked 2 separate hotels.) The Westin had nice, spacious rooms, but its location was inconvenient. The Royal Hotel had an amazing location but cramped and dated rooms. Can’t win ’em both I guess =/ I was happy to learn that the Royal Hotel received our luggage after I shipped them from Tokyo. Love this delivery service!
My legs were dead from the previous day, and it was supposed to rain more, so we made this a shopping day. First, we checked out a narrow street called Nishiki Market. It was really lively! So many people were walking through and vendors were standing at the sides trying to get customers. The stands contained things like fresh produce, dried goods, souvenirs, and cooked foods.
We picked a sushi restaurant inside Nishiki for lunch, and this was actually a bad choice. The fish didn’t seem fresh and half of my pieces were chewy, so it was pretty underwhelming. (Mine is the nigiri set. My husband ordered the larger set.)
Afterwards, we spent time in the popular shopping streets, Teramachi and Shin Kyogoku. They are covered, pedestrian streets lined with shops, restuarants, and arcades. We bought some souvenirs and tried out the UFO catchers, which are different. Many of them use the claw to play a mini game instead of picking up the prize. If you win, you pick a prize within the case, which usually has Anime merchandise. They’re surprisingly hard!
The staff at these arcades are also great salesmen. They let you try once for free. When you fail, they give you tips and show you exactly how to do it. Every time you fail, they give more tips and make it look so easy. It’s not! We spent ~$20 and walked out empty handed!
And well, for dinner, we went back to Ramen Koji 🙂 This time we chose Taishoken. I got a seafood tsuke-men (dipping ramen) and my husband got the Tokyo ramen. We enjoyed these too, but they were not as rich as the Miso ramen from before.
Next up will be about our day trips to Nara and Osaka!
Wow wow wow! Japan is absolutely beautiful. I’m a bit jealous XD I hope to go there some day, but perhaps I should brush up on my Japanese first (I failed my third year of Japanese in community college, ehehehehe…).
I look forward to visiting Kyoto! I especially want to see its differences from Tokyo and all, so I’m glad you mentioned it 🙂
Can’t wait to see what you post about Osaka!
It sounds like it was nice to see a contrast between the modernised and more traditional sides of the country.
I’m not a fan of arcade games like those. I get addicted and before I know it I’ve put more money in trying to win the prize than it would have cost to just buy the prize!
All that scenery looks beautiful! I wonder if I will get to visit one day… That luggage delivery service sounds super convenient too!
The food looks super delicious too! Only thing I can hope for is to find authentic good Japanese food here, but I’ve been not too satisfied with the sushi/ramen places I’ve been trying…
I was randomly browsing and found myself on your site.
Wow that’s interesting! I’ve always fancied myself to go to Japan but never had the opportunity. But your photos make me feel like I’ve been there and makes me really want to go for real.
But the food looks super good!!
Very beautiful. I remember in one scene in Memoirs of a Geisha, that young Sayuri runs through the red torii gates. That always stuck out to me, plus the setting was Kyoto, if I remember correctly. Still, beautiful photos!
I feel like I’m there!
I haven’t seen the movie, but I have heard that they used Fushimi Inari for that scene 🙂 That’s probably why it looks familiar!
Womaaaannnn, I am 50 shades of jealous!! I hope you had a marvelous time in Japan. It sure seemed like it from your pictures. So beautiful!! Such wonderful photos. The ones in the garden turned out so lovely.
I’m obsessed with Mind of a Chef, so I’ve made it my goal to go eat where David Chang when I visit Japan one day + Jiro’s sushi restaurant too. 🙂 It’s too bad you had underwhelming sushi at that one place…guess you should’ve known better, but I mean at the same time, how could you have!? Eh, now you know.
That tsukemen looks amazing!! Did you happen to go to the birthplace of Tsukemen? I actually have no idea where the heck it is, I need to figure this out, but I’m sure their broth would’ve been better.
ALSO STREET FOOD!! Takoyaki balls are my favorite! So glad you got some of those. I’d be disappointed in you if you didn’t get any haha!
I’m actually not sure what the birthplace of Tsukemen is! I think there’s a Tokyo restaurant that branched off of the original tsukemen place though. I didn’t look it up before I left, unfortunately!
I made a list of Japanese foods I wanted to get while in Japan. Takoyaki was definitely on the list 😀
My friend visited Kyoto just this past spring and she loved it – said it was worth visiting more than Tokyo! I love all the beautiful architecture there and how you get both historic and modern scenes there.
And OMG that ramen looks delicious, I’m seriously drooling right now *___*
Gosh, Kyoto looks stunning! It sounds like your days really fill up! The shrine is lovely – is it treated regularly or is whatever it is made from naturally that lovely orange colour?
The food looks amazing, it’s making me hungry just looking at it! The amount of work that’s gone into the presentation – it’s much better than a burger!
Tofukuji is beautiful, but like you said, seeing it when all the leaves change colour would have been brilliant. Can’t wait for your next posts!
I believe the torii gates are touched up regularly 🙂 While we were walking through, we noticed a few guys re-painting some of the words on them. I was wondering how they still looked so vivid!
Oh my, you are posting so many pictures of delicious food! I would seriously love to go to Japan to just wonder around street markets and things like that. Even your Fushimi Inari Shrine hike looks phenomenal. What a perfect trip!
Kyoto looks so beautiful too!! I like the scenery that’s there. It looks like the food stands in Japan are great!!!! I would probably trust more food stand sellers in Japan compared to the ones in LA. The skewers look sooooooooo good right now :p.
It looks like you got yourself another share of ramen ;). The little candy treats on the second picture from the market looks so cute!!!! Too cute to be eaten :p.
It’s a bummer that you had bad sushi in Japan :(! Out of all places, it’s unimaginable that such things would exist in Japan. Most ramen are meat-based right? I love eating ramen but my boyfriend is pescetarian so he tries avoiding meat-based soup *o*.
I think the one place in Japan I would go out of Tokyo (I would only have about 3-4 days there if I were to go) is definitely Kyoto because of Fushimi Inari Shrine. Now I know they are lots of torii gates – never actually did the research on them before, just thought they looked awesome!
I have never tried street food before but I would not give up that taiyaki for anything.
It sounds like those arcades are sneaky Kyoto-style casinos. Pay money to try to win something you really want and come out empty handed. LOL.
I see a piece of Naruto in that ramen!