Today, we mostly traveled. We packed up, cleaned up the apartment a bit, and we had some extra time before the train ticket office opened, so we just chilled for a while before we called our taxi. I even washed the dishes. Then we took the taxi to the train station, and went to the ticket office. Again, the lady helped us and we were able to get our tickets for the journey. We got onto the train and I wanted to try the bento box, so we got it for $12.
Then I ate it. It was quite good, the food was a bit different from what I’m used to though. Masa said that that was Kyoto style sushi and sashimi, and it is very strange since the seaweed is actually not dehydrated kelp, and the other things were also things we weren’t accustomed to. Oh well, it was pretty good anyway. So then on the train, I wrote in my DEAR DIARY and slept a bit, and then we were there.
We first went to the legendary soba place. it was right in the train station, as everything in Japan seems to be. There were tables and chairs like a normal restaurant, but at the back, there was a raised platform with panels in front, with 3 small tables on the ground and cushions around them on top of the tatami mat that the whole platform was covered in. There were leg holes for your legs though.
I was like, should i take off my shoes? Since the rest of the restaurant was so modern. Masa said, No, so I was like, okay, and then AS SOON AS I touched the platform with my shoe, the waitress yelled across the whole restaurant, no shoes please!! And I was like goddamnit. I felt so embarrassed. So we looked at the menu and we both ordered the cold soba with fish. I think Masa got the cold soba with fish and eggs though. The waitress brought it over, and with each set meal, we had the cold soba, dipping sauce, a plate of green onion to put in the dipping sauce, and the cold soba had fish pieces on top.
Apparently that preparation of mackerel is traditional to that area of japan. The waitress also brought a carafe of hot water. It was unclear what we should do with it, so I looked it up, and also it said in the menu that it’s a hot water solution that the buckwheat noodles were boiled in. So it just tasted like plain noodle water. We ended up not using it but I think you can pour it into the bowl of soba if you want hot noodle soup. It was really delicious!
Then we left the restaurant and went to go find a locker to put our suitcases in. We used a rental locker at the train station! It was like $7 for locking it once. I think that if you use it, you can lock your stuff up for up to 3 days before they take it out and keep it somewhere. After that, they hold it for a month and you can get it back then. But then after that, i think they throw it away.
Anyway, we kept our ticket and made our way to the Kinkakuji golden temple. Apparently the fastest way to get there was bus. This city was different from Tokyo because instead of all these tall skyscrapers, there were much shorter (2-3 story) buildings and it seemed to be mostly of wood construction. Storefronts were mostly old-style storefronts. By the train station, there were much more modern buildings though, just like Tokyo. We walked to the bus platform and apparently you can use your IC card there too which was nice.
We got on, and sat in some seats at the back for 40 min. We were right above the heating element or something though, because it got really hot really fast. We started to drink more water and take off our coats and stuff. At some point it got pretty packed. I think this bus went straight north to Kinkakuji, and the closer we got, the more ppl got on. We saw a lot of cool stuff outside, but mostly it was sooo hot it was almost unbearable. We finally got off at Kinkakuji, as most other people did.
We walked into the entrance way, and it was lined with so much moss and stone chest-high walls. We bought tickets and there were actually a large amount of people. We entered and immediately we saw the temple across the lake. The sky was kind of overcast but it was still gorgeous out, and it was raining a little bit. The temple managed to shine so gold and its reflection was beautiful.
A family asked us to take their picture and they took our picture too. The temple was breathtaking in blinding gold. Apparently the bottom is built in an old Japanese style. The middle layer is built in a more recent Japanese architectural style. And the top is modeled after Chinese royal architecture. The top two layers are gilded with gold foil. No one is allowed to step inside and it is a world heritage site.
We continued along the walkway and it was honestly quite crowded, but not too unpleasantly so. We saw a small wooden hut and it was another temple, but not open today. It was kind of late when we got there, around 3-4. So many things were already closed for the day or maybe for the new year holiday? Anyway. There were a few paths inside that said “DO NOT ENTER” or “NO PHOTOGRAPHS PLEASE” because they were private properties and people actually lived there! Then we went around the bend and saw the other side of the temple. The pictures from that were beautiful too, with the sun glinting off the sides of the temple, beams coming through the clouds. We walked through and it was like a small garden area. There were small creeks and rocks, bushes and trees and the ground on the sides of the walkway were covered in this beautiful lush green moss. Along the path there were many little statues and stone lanterns. There were also little settings made with rocks to throw your coins into.
There were little bowls you could throw your rocks into and they made hella money. Some ppl even threw $5 coins in there! Finally at the end of the curvy walkway there were your usual booths of people selling souvenirs and food. It was raining so many were closed. Many places sold merchandise that was kinkakuji specific! Like hello kitty X kinkakuji temple drinks and toys! So weird. There was also a temple that was operating near the end of the walkway, and you could swing the gigantic rope to ring the bell. People were throwing coins in there and doing the fortune draws and stuff. Anyway at the end there were the bathrooms and we just walked out. Oh there was a lot of matcha stands, and some capitalized on the kinkakuji goldness by advertising gold flakes in their ice cream! They were only $5 each but we decided to go somewhere more known for it to eat some matcha ice cream.
Matcha is famous in kyoto! It’s called Uji matcha or something, uji is the region. Then we decided not to get on the super crowded bus, and instead walk back to the train station at our leisure and sightsee along the way. We wanted to see some of the royal castles but they were all closed or closing by the time we could be able to get there. We passed by so many temples. It seemed like there were so many temples that there were multiple temples per city block. It felt really weird that all these temples were so integrated to the city, with the old buildings and utilitarian design and large storefront signage.
Anyway we were just walking on the street and we saw people line up at multiple bus stops all downstream from kinkakuji and thanked the lord we were able/willing to walk miles to get where we needed to go. Actually this Chinese couple almost ran into us and the guy made a huge deal and yelped about almost running into me but I was going around them because they were blocking the sidewalk in the middle…. lol.
We walked into this large temple/park area and they had a garden. Then we saw the main temple area and it was dedicated to foxes. We could tie our fortunes to the tree and stuff but we didn’t. We saw these massive yuzus on the tree there! Then we walked through the garden and out of there. In the spring apparently there are lots of cherry blossoms there.
We walked out of the side and into this large gate, which didn’t seem to do anything since the other side was also a street. It was residential and had many small vespas and bikes and compact cars and trash bins lining the street. Then we started walking east? And we crossed this bridge, which was crossing a deep ravine with a river. We looked at the houses nearby, and I thought, they must have such a nice view. Multiple luxury cars started coming through the narrow streets like Mercedes and BMWs that were the size of American cars. We were like, wow Kyoto must have so many rich people.
Then we went to another temple, which was supposed to be one of the more popular temples around in the area. It was actually a collection of multiple on the same plot of land. In the gateway, we spent some time looking up at the lantern. It seemed to be made of some kind of ivory and hundreds of people’s names or something were etched onto it in great detail. Some of the temples were just an altar, and the one right at the entrance was rated something like 3.3 stars on google for not having that many features.
The rest of the complex had much more colorful flags and temples, and when we got to a clearing, we could hear the monks chanting inside. It was closed to the public. There was a wall of large sake barrels and they looked so beautiful.
Then we started walking out of the temple, on this road lined with stone lanterns. Then after a long time of walking, we decided to visit monster street. We thought it would be dope since it was orange on Google maps but most of it was closed. It seemed to have a mix of some stuff that caters toward tourists and some real artisan stuff, some snacks to go and some packaged snacks too. Most were closed though.
We started walking on the main street again and we saw many people riding bikes on the sidewalk as well as in the street and we were like ???? We passed by many small stores, including one store that sold almost exclusively cute mouse paraphernalia for the new year. We also saw a store of guzheng.
Then it started getting dark and we were wondering what to eat. We finally settled down on this popular tempura chain that started in Kyoto! But we didn’t want to walk back all the way so when we got to the imperial palace walls, we were like darn we can’t go in and see. But then we took the subway underneath it and subwayed to the train station! It only took 10 more minutes. We got our stuff from the locker and checked into our hotel. The inside was so swanky and nice! Felt definitely nicer than a 3 star. We checked in, and went up to the hotel room. At this point, I saw why it was rated 3 stars.
We had a non smoking room but we were on a smoking floor (didnt know this at the time). The air was quite fresh since the window was open! It was cold in there. We closed the window and put our stuff down. Then we walked to the train station again. The food place was in one of the mall-tower things that were around the train station. We got into this elevator in the odakyu or the other dept store thing, and it was soooo crowded, but the stupid people kept on letting people in and saying, yea you’ll fit. I guess Americans are just accustomed to having more space. Finally we got to the floor and we saw the restaurant we were going to. There was a family waiting there already so we sat down on the bench. We got into the restaurant and we were seated in the corner.
There is endless cabbage, miso soup, and rice included with every meal you get there. We both ordered the basic pork cutlet and the waitress brought out our sides. She also brought out these sesame seeds in a grinding bowl and a pestle. We ground up the seeds and poured some sauce (they had normal and also spicy flavor) in it to make the proper tonkotsu sauce.
There was also a yuzu salad dressing which we could pour onto the salad. The tonkotsu came out and it was a DREAM. I kept eating the pickles and i asked for rice and miso soup one time each. The miso soup had so many ingredients in it! I was very happy about it.
The yuzu sauce was amazing too, as a salad dressing and as a dip for the tonkotsu! I was SO full. So we paid and left. One thing that I like about the food culture here is that (not only do you not need to tip), you also get the check as soon as your food comes out. If you want more, or if it’s the type of place where you’ll order in multiple rounds, you just say so, and they’ll wait to bring out your check. Otherwise, they bring the check out with the food so when you’re done, you don’t have to wait and flag down the waiter to get them to bring your check. Also, when you’re done, you usually bring the receipt to the front to pay, instead of waiting for the waiter to send your card/money to the front, have them process it, and then gather your things and go.
We left the mall tower thing, and we went down the bajillion steps. I think this place was called the “CUBE” and the other side was odakyu dept store or something.
We could see the Kyoto tower framed perfectly in the opening of the building.
This was a quite confusing train station to be at. We decided to sight see a little bit. There was a place that sold good matcha ice cream so we wanted to get some of that. We walked out of the buildings area and saw that there was a light show fountain, called aqua fantasy. You couldn’t even see it since it was on top of a small building right outside the mall buildings. But when it lights up and water comes out, then you can see it. It was SO lame and it was even dripping onto the walkway below and the neon sign underneath. Like is that not something they should try to fix? They synced up to music but it was a little lame.
Anyway we tried to find the matcha place but we couldn’t. So we just bounced and we went to this other mall that was kind of close to the Kyoto tower and we got the matcha ice cream with their little cake bits at the bottom (kyo cafe) and it was soooo delicious.
We walked back to the hotel and we went to bed. The shower was so tiny that Masa hit his head on the ceiling. My own head was a literal inch from the ceiling, and I am not tall at all. The bathroom was so freaking tiny that my knees barely fit in the bathroom with the door closed while i was sitting on the toilet. If you wanted to get to the sink, you had to take a side step to it. It honestly felt like an airplane bathroom. Then I watched some more Maid Sama. The room was starting to smell like smoke and I didn’t know where it was coming from. We slept and the bed was decently cozy albeit small. It felt like the TV was going to fall on our legs. I remember I fell asleep thinking about how great America is. I take space for granted. They provided pajamas but i was a bit skeeved out so we didn’t wear them.
