Hi guys! Hope you guys enjoyed the Kyoto video I posted 2 weeks ago above. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for more travel vlogs and art processes!
Now, Kyoto will be spread over a few blog posts here because there are just too many pictures on each area to share with you all. So here’s how the Kyoto Series will go:
Part 1: Shinkyogoku, Teramachi, Fushimi Inari Part 2: Kiyomizu Dera, Tsujiri Honten, Gion & Food Part 3: Arashiyama, Kinaku
That’s me at the station in Tokyo before heading down to Kyoto. Watching the bags as the boys went to get our bento boxes.
Tokyo to Kyoto
Kyoto is beautiful and rich in culture and history. Here, you can experience the natural beauty as well as older culture of Japan.
We took the Shinkansen (Bullet train) down to Kyoto from Tokyo. It costs around MYR500, that’s like taking a flight! It was about a 3 hour ride. Everything outside the window was beautiful.
The Shinkansen is extremely comfortable with ample leg room. We had our brunch on the train like you would in a plane, only with a lot more space. Here are some of the bento boxes we got from the train station at Tokyo.
The second box was cool. It had some sort of heating technology. You just have to pull a string out of the box, and hot steam would gush out, heating up the contents in the bento box (you can see that in the beginning of the video).
Kyoto
Kyoto had more of these vintage looking trains as shown above. Below is us in this old tiny elevator that takes us to our AirBnb. For some reason, I couldn’t find any pictures of the places we stayed at, but it was small and vintage, but well maintained.
Our AirBnb was in a pretty good location near the river and Gion where the main attractions were. After settling in, the sun was already setting. Off we went for a stroll to the Shinkyogoku and Teramachi shopping arcades. They were huge with so much to see and purchase! Things here were not as expensive as Tokyo. However, shops close fairly early, like 7 or 8pm? So after dinner, we could barely buy anything. Here are some pictures of the shopping arcades and stuff to buy.
Shinkyogoku & Teramachi
It was hard to look for something to eat because we didn’t do ANY planning at all. But we were lucky enough to stumble on this restaurant somewhere in the arcade with a small door and window where the signboard only says  “ã¨ã‚“ー” (Ton). There was a line outside of the restaurant, so we thought it is probably good and we should give it a try – Always trust the line!
To our pleasant surprise, the portions were humungous! These are standard sized bowls and plates, look at the meat and salad mountains! Everything was fried to perfection. Great meal for only about JPY1,000.
We were starting to love Kyoto for the price range of their food. Here are other snacks you could get in the arcade. The egg tarts and BAKE were really good and crunchy. In Japan, most restaurants have pretty realistic dummy food in their display:
Here are some pictures of the streets and shopping places in the area between Gion and the river.
Starbucks always seem to be landmarks of all the tourist attractions in Japan.
The Sanjo Station, the nearest station to where we were staying. As you can see, there are no escalators on smaller stations like these.. So too much luggage will be a big hassle going up and down the steps.
The next morning, we took the train to Fushimi Inari, one of the most popular landmarks in Kyoto.
In the train. There are heaters under the seat of the train. Fushimi Inari’s station is a little more special than the other stations. The grills there are painted red with pictures of foxes around, to represent the famous red-orange gates of the Fushimi Inari shrine.
Fushimi Inari
Four of us on the massive entrance ground towards the shrine.
Not quite sure what people write on these. Probably good fortune stuff?
We did the thing where you shake the sticks. I got this paper. Apparently it’s some kind of good luck. Did not tie it on that though, I brought it home lol.
We then went up and hiked up along the gates. There were so many people, it looked like we were zombies forced to crowd along tunnels to get to our destination
The walk was quite the hike. There are 10Â levels of gates to walk through. The picture below probably says how many gates you would have walked through at which level. We only got to the 5th level till we started to head back down.
There were beautiful fluffy cats up in the little villages on the hill.
There are many little fox dolls set up on all the praying areas. Probably need to google and see what it means.
There were many zen Japanese gardens on the hill.
There were also residences. All so neat, clean and quiet. I wonder how they feel with so many tourists walking down their backyards everyday.
When we got down, there were a lot more street food set up. We got some takoyakis and these round fruit juice things that they blend from the inside.
More train track pictures. It’s just such a common site here in Japan.
Finally, ending the post with souvenir pictures:
Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Don’t have a lot of explanations on why this and what everything means because I don’t know and Google would probably be more accurate. Haha. Do share with me your experiences or if you know anything more about the Shrine! Subscribe to this blog by entering your email on the upper right corner! I wouldn’t know who you are and I don’t store your emails, so you’re anonymous to me unless you leave a comment!
Till next time! Keep up with more pictures on my Instagram @daphnesiaw! Taaa!
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