The Land of the Rising Sun.
Every July I am blessed to be a year older and this year I turned the ripe old age of 25 (I finally feel I've hit adulthood), it's also around the same time I have summer vacation,
yay! It's been a while since I have been abroad, (if we don't count the fact I live and work in South Korea.) So I made it an opportunity to fly over to Kyoto, Japan.
Thursday 28th July:
Despite my flight being at 4pm, I had to travel to Busan Airport, a 3 hour bus journey away! (the downfall of living in Gwangju). I left 8.30 that morning, I got to the airport midday and I arrived in Osaka Kansai Airport, around 5.30pm. Unfortunately the beginning of my trip didn't start off great, I ended up in the immigration line for over an hour. (Not cool man, not cool!) By the time I got to Kyoto, it was 9pm. I met Céilà at Kyoto central station, at this point I was starving, we found a nice joint that sold Japanese ramen and it was the most replenishing and delicious thing I had eaten in a long while. We then headed back to the hostel and we got me checked in. We planned for the next days activities and we started our Pokemon Go adventure, catching as many Pokemon as possible. We were staying in a mixed dorm, despite the fact we were in a dorm with 6 guys, sleeping on the top bunks (i hate top bunks) and one of them suffering from sleep apnea was snoring like a jet engine the whole night, however, I managed to sleep surprisingly well.
Friday 29th July:
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| The famous tunnel at the Fushimi Shrine. |
The next day we rose early, rented bicycles for the day and grabbed breakfast from a family mart. Kyoto is great for riding bicycles as its mostly flat and theres loads of places to park your bicycles with no charge. We had to sign an agreement and one of the points stated was, it is in fact illegal to ride a bicycle if you have consumed alcohol in Japan, madness!
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| Outside Fushimi Temple. |
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| Hiking up the mountain with CéilÃ. |
The first place we visited was the Kyoto Fushimi Shrine which is super famous and also happens to be in the movie, The Memoirs of a Geisha. It was a beautiful place, we cleansed ourselves with by the fountain before entering, we spent a while following the trail because we actually climbed Inari Mountain all the way to the peak, sadly there was no view except a load more shrines. It was an enlightening experience and one I thoroughly enjoyed, despite the mad heat and many people!
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| Lunch |
After all the hiking in the sweltering heat we went to eat at another Japanese place. We ordered chicken and egg fried rice which came with a side of seaweed and radish accompanied with some chilled herbal tea. Rather yummy, slightly sweet and not at all how I expected.
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| The view from mountain Inari on the way up. |
The next place we cycled to was Tofukiji Temple I didn't take any photos but Céilà took a ton so I will place one in once she's processed them. We didn't stay too long as it was closing and sweltering hot. But it was peaceful, huge, larger than anticipated and of course architecturally Japanese.
We also visited a rock garden, which was stunning but we weren't actually allowed to take photos we sat down and looked at the zen gardens and reflected peacefully, it was lovely.
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| Kiyomizu-Dera |
We then hopped back on our bicycles and went to the next temple Kiyomizu-Dera this one was one of my favorites, we had a nice view and the architecture was super pretty!
After all the cycling, hiking and walking in the blistering heat, we visited downtown Kyoto looking for dinner, Geisha's and to do some shopping (I forgot to pack a hairbrush and I really needed one!), we finally agreed on a Chinese place because we were so drained and hungry at this point we just needed to rest our achey legs. I ate a garlic and pork fried rice dish and Cėilà ate some more ramen, which was delicious but Japanese ramen is still the best!
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| Kiyomizu-Dera |
We visited an arcade and instantly a claw machine with Star Wars figures caught my eye, I hadn't yet bought my boyfriend a present and I wasn't sure if we would have the time to visit the Pokémon Center, so without hesitation, I tried, I instantly realised I knew how I could get it, so I gave it another go and miraculously I won it! I was so chuffed, it suddenly got me rather cocky and I tried to also win Céilà some Gudetama stuff, but it failed! :(
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| "Come out now and bring yer Hurley!!!" |
Céilà spotted a funky Japanese photo booth called Hey Cherry! (haha I know, it was like it was meant to be!) we stepped in, it had a green screen and beauty lighting and we stood there crouching down to the camera level (we are giants in Japan!) making stupid poses for the camera. We edited and added stuff but the options are endless, makeup, emojis, writing and all that girly stuff. We opted for a space theme because it had edited our eyes to alien like proportions. This is what we ended up with!
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| Yasaka Temple |
After that we called it a night and went back to the hostel to conk the hell out! Thankfully two females had moved into our dorm that evening, and thankfully sleep apnea man had left. Just when we were about to pass out, we found that there was a Dratini Pokemon nearby, somehow we found energy to wonder around for about 30 minuted trying to catch this rare Pokemon before we gave up and hit the hay. We did not succeed but day 1 was a success!
Saturday 30th July:
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| Nijo-jo castle |
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| Ginkaku-ji Temple |
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| Kinkaku-ji Temple |
I woke up to find I had very tight calves and the heels of my feet were not great either. Nevertheless I didn't let that stop me. We ate breakfast at the hostel this time, an all you can eat buffet consisting of rather peculiar breakfast options, the bog standard jam, bread/toast, orange juice, coffee, tea, cornflakes, yogurt and eggs were available, what was peculiar was the lettuce, chow mein, and hot dogs. I opted for hot dogs, chow mein, eggs and corn flakes, we ate whilst making plans for the day, as this was the last full day to see as much of Kyoto as we could. We decided we would walk or subway everywhere rather than cycle due to sheer amount of distance we were travelling that day, we planned on visiting the golden temple called Kinkaku-ji, followed by the silver temple, Ginkaku-ji, then Nijo Castle and finally the Monkey Park to feed monkeys!
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One of many bowls Japanese
Ramen consumed on our trip. |
We managed to visit the first three but due to Japanese closing hours being so early there was no time to feed monkeys! *cry*. Whilst visiting the Gold temple we saw an old lady on a small stall selling beautiful handmade Japanese decorative hairpins, that are traditionally worn with the Kimono or Yukata. We fell in love so we each bought one. She even packaged it beautifully. We also managed to find Japanese green tea kit kats and creepy looking Hello Kitty masks at a local shop.
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| Green Tea Kit-Kats |
After more temple/shrine/castle, sightseeing we ate more Japanese ramen and we headed to our last temple, Yasaka Temple, which was near another downtown area in Kyoto, we arrived for the sunset, relaxed and explored, which was followed by some shopping for souvenirs in downtown.
I found a Hello Kitty store that immediately caught my eye, which mostly was very expensive, but I managed to find something practical and not too overpriced, a hello kitty coin purse. They packaged it beautifully just like everything you buy in Japan.
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| Hello Kitty Stuff |
We also visited the much anticipated Pokèmon store that I weren't sure we would have time to visit. I was not disappointed and ended up buying stuff mostly for my boyfriend and a little Pikachu pen for myself.
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| Pokemon Store gifts |
We also shopped around and found a lovely traditional Japanese store selling Yukatas and Kimonos at reasonable prices. So we both bought one as a souvenir, it was worth every penny!
We ended that night with Japanese Kobe beef meal together, the beef was so tender, it literally melted in our mouths and was so flavourful, sadly my phone had died at this point so I didn't get any snaps, Céilà managed to and I will upload it when possible. I savoured my pieces of steak whilst Céilà ate it all in blink of an eye, needless to say it was delicious and was worth the high price tag just to experience the best A5 steak known to man! We headed back to the hostel packed and went to sleep ready for our last morning in Kyoto and the trip back to Korea.
Sunday 31st July:
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| Traditional Yukata minus the Obi (belt) |
We visited downtown Kyoto one last time to pick up some last minute trinkets/presents after some breakfast. We rushed as we realised we were limited on time. We missed our train and had to run for the next one back to Osaka, otherwise we would have missed our plane back to Korea. After running through crowds of people and waiting forever to buy a ticket we relaxed on the train back to Osaka Kansai airport where I conked out and Céilà caught more Pokemon. We caught our plane back to Busan and waited an hour for a bus back to Gwangju. Despite some minor issues we maximised time and saw a lot, it was sad leaving, but I will be back Japan! The next place, Tokyo!
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| Busan on arrival to Korea. |
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