Kyoto

We had tickets booked today for the Shinkansen which is the highest speed train between Tokyo and Kyoto. ourtrain was at 9:17 am. All the trains and subways we’ve taken so far have not been scheduled so it’s totally fine if we show up 20 minutes later than we had plans will be, but our Shinkansen tickets were purchased in advance and we couldn’t miss the train.  we also had to pack up our whole apartment, which is so much work. We were really spoiled spending seven nights in one apartment.So we left quite early for the train station.  Many people get Bento box for the high-speed train  The stations that have the high-speed trains go through them have 1000 different kinds of bento boxes. They are called ekiben  eki- train station and Ben short for bento.  Here are some pictures of us choosing our ekibens  

Here’s the long nose of the high-speed train

This is Joel‘s Bento box

Each one comes to chopsticks and wipes and different sauces

Owen got a sushi bento box

Trev’s was a bunch of assorted things. He said every single thing was absolutely delicious.

Anna found this pop which is strong, lemon flavoured and she said it was really yummy

It was a clear day so we could see Mount Fuji from the train

We got to Kyoto at around 11:20 Our Airbnb is an apartment, but it is part of a hostel complex called the Bird Hostel. This is in the lobby. We were able to drop our bags since we couldn’t check in so early.

They have some origami paper and instructions so Anna has been practising making a paper cranes

Owen noticed all these Japanese kids on the train were playing Smash Bros so he did too

Our first stop was Nishiki market. It was quite crowded, but enjoyable It was definitely 95% seafood.  But prepared seafood, like meals and snack not just fresh seafood We weren’t super hungry since we had already eaten our bento boxes, but of course we did manage to find one snack. It was something we hadn’t crossed off our food scavenger hunt list yet.

Check out these tiny little octopus on a stick they had these at several stands

These are called daifuku they are mochi filled with a filling and with a strawberry on top. Joel and Anna got chocolate. Trevor got Matcha and I got melon which was cantaloup flavoured in the middle. It was honestly one of my favourite snacks. We’ve tried so far.

More of the market

From there we would’ve had to take two buses to get to our next spot. We had followed a YouTuber named Abby who we watched a ton of her videos about Japan and she had suggested that sometimes in Kyoto when you need to take several buses and they’re very crowded it’s better to just take a cab and in this case, it definitely worked out that it was better to take a cab. It wasn’t that much more expensive and it got us their way sooner with less stress. The cabs are very professional, white glove service

He was able to drive us 95% of the way there the last 5% was a pedestrian only area with lots of different shops Owen ended up buying this fan with a dragon and a tiger on it

And then we arrived at Kiyomizu-dera Temple

We spent about 15 minutes exploring. The sun was out and this temple was absolutely beautiful. suddenly, we heard chanting and drums and a whole bustle of activity we turned around and suddenly there was this huge dragon carried by people heading our way. we researched after and there was a ceremony that happens only three times a year that literally started 15 minutes after we got there March 15 is one of the three days of the year that this ceremony happens. this temple is dedicated to dragons. This was honestly the coolest coincidence. we figured Owen buying the dragon fan brought us good luck

We watched the ceremony for about 15 minutes, and then we went to explore the rest of the temple when the dragon moved out of view of us. 

Apparently the entire ceremony lasts 90 minutes, and the dragon makes its way all around the temple grounds

They were beautiful views of Kyoto around this temp

This temple is located at the top of a huge steep hill. The streets are called Sannenzaka & Ninenzaka. The first part is the steepest and apparently, if you stumble or fall, it is three years of bad luck The second street is a little bit wider and a little less steep and apparently there if you stumble or fall it’s two years of bad luck.  we did a little bit of shopping on the way down and got a couple of souvenirs. I’ll post them at the end since the pictures is coming and whatever order they please.

By the way, it’s very popular in Kyoto to rent kimonos. You can rent a kimono for several hours if you go in and they will help you tie it and you could wear it around town and take pictures. They will also do your hair in traditional styles, we also saw many many Japanese women wearing kimonos today also.

These are tourist shopping in their kimonos

Of course we had to stop for a snack. The kids got soft serve and Trevor and I got some alcoholic drinks. I will say that one thing that can be a little bit frustrating in Japan is that there is a culture that you do not walk while eating or drinking. this means whenever you get a snack or a drink you need to stop and eat it wherever you are so we sat in front of this little stand and drink our drinks One thing I will say is amazing about Japan however it is that because there’s no pickpockets and no crime. It doesn’t always feel like you have to protect your belongings at all costs like it did in Italy. In Italy we were constantly guarding our phones our backpacks when we were on the subway and we were holding our backpacks on our front when you would put your backpack down at a restaurant you would wrap it around your leg so that it didn’t get stolen. in Japan on the subways we just put our bags on the ground in the subway to have a rest and you don’t have to worry about somebody grabbing it.

I had a mango sour which was 10 out of 10 and Trev had a Kyoto whiskey

This woman had her makeup done up like a geisha

Looking downhill in this shopping area

Lots of crowds and I wouldn’t have wanted it any busier than this, but it wasn’t too too overwhelming

This is Yasaka pagoda We just stopped there for a couple of pictures for a couple of minutes

While we were browsing, we found a secondhand shop/thrift store and we went in. We were looking for a Christmas decoration and we found a bell at the secondhand store. I asked the lady if she knew what it said on it and she used Google Translate to show me this. I’ve got a picture of the bell later in this post

All of the cherry blossom trees are just getting their buds, but man you can really see how why cherry blossom season is so popular in Japan It will start in a couple of weeks When these trees are in full bloom everywhere it really must be absolutely beautiful. They are at all the temples in all the parks. here is one that patched some early blooms

A cool Pokémon manhole cover

After that, we walked to Yasaka shrine (different than Yasaka Pagoda above). It has all of these beautiful lanterns!

From there, it was the meal that Owen has been waiting He’s been asking for sushi all week and it was finally time for our conveyor sushi meal. you go into the restaurant and you get a table. Because there were five of us, it split us into two tables There’s a big huge screen at the front of your table and you use that to order your sushi It’s not all you can eat: you pay for each sushi that you order Once you order your sushi, you watch and it gets delivered to you by conveyor belt It’s really fun Anna and I could see all the food for everyone in the restaurant whizz by us and whenever it was ours, the little arm would turn, and the sushi would be diverted into our little table area. They had a lot of different sushi, mostly Nigiri They had some rolls as well They had Ramen  they had a lot of different dessert options also

After every few things you ordered a little game would appear on the screen. It was all in Japanese and we couldn’t quite figure out what we were doing, but Anna would play the game every time.

This was the table across from us after they were done eating look how many plates they ordered we tried to beat them, but didn’t even come close

Anna finally won one of the games and it said congratulations. We will send your prize down the conveyor belt. I have a picture of her prize little later

After that, we walked around the Gion and Pontocho alley areas or Kyoto. We saw this funny statue

This was in the canal area

Actually, before we did Gion and Poncho Alley, we walked back to Yasaka shrine because we wanted to see the lanterns all lit up well worth the five minute walk to get back here because it looked really beautiful at night

We had such a nice stroll around town. It was very atmospheric and it wasn’t too late just after six or 6:30 PM so we weren’t too too tired. It was really nice to just stroll around The kids only whined a little 😜 For a reality check, the kids are generally troopers as I push them quite hard to do a lot in a day but there definitely is whining and fighting that happens also. 

This is Hanamikoji Street in Gion. It is a traditional Geisha area

And then these are from Pontocho alley

We made a quick pitstop for Owen to get a new power bank since his stopped working and we definitely go through more than one phone charge during the day Trevor and I from doing maps, reading our itinerary and taking 1 million photos and the kids from playing Pokémon go and taking photos

Owen wasn’t pleased that I was taking his picture again and put on this half fake half real annoyed face😆 

Back at the hostel, they had this map where you could add where you were from

Our Airbnb is awesome. It is huge tons of space feels very traditionally Japanese and has everything we could want in an Airbnb. Beds are comfortable it has a really nice bathroom and shower The toilet seat opens up automatically when you walk into the bathroom, which is really funny

They left us this Matcha, which will have to try tomorrow

And then a few out of order pictures this is the bell that we got at the thrift store

I picked up this little lucky cat because these cats are supposed to bring people into your place of business and make sure that you have good success in your business so I got one for North engineering

And then before we found the bell, we bought this little keychain that we were going to turn into a Christmas decoration since I haven’t seen any Christmas decorations and that’s our traditional souvenir

This is the little thing that Anna won at the sushi game It’s just a little pouch. I shoved all our souvenirs in it for safekeeping

This was a highlight of the day for Trevor and I from the sushi restaurant This whole trip I’ve been talking about Abby as I usually talk about Rick Steves when we’re in Europe. I’d say all the time oh Abby says we should check this out Or Abby said to do this first before we do that Abby says to make sure to go down the street Kids kept saying who the heck is Abby and I just kept saying she’s a YouTuber that taught us about going to Japan Her husband Tappei is in a lot of the videos also. They have a YouTube channel called piqtour. Abby is a tour guide that tourist groups around Kyoto and both her and her husband are photographers also So they do photo shoots We knew they lived in Kyoto Trev joked this morning hey maybe we’ll run into Abby. Trev and I were split up at the sushi restaurant because we needed two tables so we were in different areas of the restaurant. Suddenly Trev texted me and said Abby and Tappei are sitting at the table next to us. 😆 I did go over and I just said sorry if this is weird just wanted to say thank you for all of your videos. They’ve made our trip to Japan really great. And they were very nice and they just said oh that’s great thank you but I was definitely fangirling a little bit 😆 

They ended up leaving at the same time as us and Trev got this pic of them walking in front of us! 😆 Hilarious celebrity sighting. 

Now if we could just find Sinichi and Satoshi, the guys from Tabi Eats, our Japan Trip would be complete!  We’ve watched them eat so much food around Japan! 😆 

A few more Airbnb pics

Oh, and our Airbnb has a private sauna also it actually got pretty hot and was better than I expected it to be it also has a jetted bathtub so I took a nice jetted bath while I wrote most of this post we’re making a few adjustments to our itinerary because of weather they are calling for later in the week, so I’m off to figure out our best plan now22,500 steps today (not bad since we were stuck I. The train for a couple of hours!