So excited for my trip to Kyoto!!! I slept in Kanazawa and took the 11am train to Kyoto. It has been a couple of very busy days sights...

Kyoto

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So excited for my trip to Kyoto!!!

I slept in Kanazawa and took the 11am train to Kyoto. It has been a couple of very busy days sightseeing and walking non stop so today after checking in into my awesome hostel I decided to stay in, catch up on the blog and relax.

At around 6pm I was starving so I came down from my bunk and met one of my roommates, Rebecca, and ended up joining her and her Japanese friend, Rimi, for dinner.

In many cities the train station is the place to eat! On the bottom floor there are heaps of restaurants full with locals.
It was very interesting to go there because all of the restaurants had windows displaying the plates that they sell. The food is made out of plastic but it actually looks exactly like the dish you are served! It is so impressive!



I decided to try a new dish... cold Udon!

After having a great dinner we, of course, wanted some dessert so we decided to go get some cake... some matcha cake!!! (Matcha is HUGE here in Japan! they make absolutely everything you can imagine with matcha!)


While having dinner we talked about the plastic food and the display and how different that is from where we come from (Rebecca and I) and told Rimi that back home you get a menu with no pictures or displays, you order and it's a mistery what your dish will look like. She was very surprised by it just like we were surprised to see all the very realistic plastic dishes!

After dinner we went back to the common area in the hostel where we were able to make new friends and plan some sight seeing for the next day!

Exploring Kyoto was a lot of fun!
The first day I walked around town with Arthur from France, and Heike from Germany! Our day started in...

The Bamboo Forest!
We took the JR train from Kyoto station and then walked around the bamboo forest. It was really pretty but at the same time very touristy!



We had some fun taking pictures with the GoPro!



After we walked around the bamboo forest (which wasn't very long) we went to check out the bridge (which was not exciting at all.) It was so hot already at 10:30am that we decided just to sit and look at the bridge from far away.

We saw these Geishas but I'm unsure if they are real ones or ordinary people dressed up as geishas.


From the Bamboo Forest we went to the famous Kinkaku-ji, aka the Golden Temple!
On the bus on our way there we met a Korean older couple from the Bay Area and they stayed with Arthur and I for the whole day.


The Golden temple was very beautiful but other than looking at it for afar there is nothing else to do so we quickly got the bus to check out the Nijojo Castle. 

By now it was probably 3pm and the sun was so strong and the heat was almost unbearable (at least for me), everybody was sweating, and stinky... yuk!

The heat sometimes it's too much for me, and the humidity makes it 100% worst! I have given up on the idea of having decent hair! My hair is curly and crazy all the time! 

The best part of the castle was the mist at the beginning! haha Once you enter there were hoses spraying all guests with mists... I so needed it!






We left Nijojo and headed to Fushimi, the thousand torii temple, in hopes to see the sunset! We started to walk up and I saw a sign and went right where we shouldn't so we missed sunset but we got to see a place that seem like a cemetery full of torii.




Since we missed sunset and it got dark Arthur and I had fun taking night shots with the torii.



On our way back to Kyoto I got a message from Rebecca to meet up for dinner and ended up going to a place that Rimi had recommended the night before.
We waited in line for like a minute or two and to our surprise we had to buy our meal from a vending machine/ computer and pay there. We got to pick what we wanted and select the size and 30 seconds after we sat down the food came!
The dish served there is a bowl with rice, veggies, and some sort of protein and next to it there is a pot of stock that you need to put into the bowl; in addition, there were some side dishes and we had no idea how to eat it. Thank goodness there was a Japanese girl sitting next to Arthur and he was telling us how the girl was eating the dish and we just copied her! It was really funny!!!




The forecast for my second day in Kyoto said rain so I chose to stay in town and explore Kyoto under my umbrella!

My first stop was nishito market




All kinds of rice crackers! 


The candy that they make is super cute! 



More fermented vegetables!!!



 While walking in the Nishito garden I stumbled upon the Japanese dollar store and it was sooo cool! Lots of unnecessary things for 100Yen!

They even had hello kitty utensils



I know that fruit is really really expensive in Japan but sometimes it was just too ridiculous... $16 for these many grapes?! You could buy 2 decent meals from a restaurant for that much!


In the market I found a Hello kitty craze gone snoopy! They literally had everything snoopy you can imagine!



When I walk in a market what I enjoy the most is people watching and I try to take pictures of their every day living... Somehow black and white makes it a little cooler in my opinion!






After a stroll around the market I decided to walk to Gion, aka geisha street.
On my way I stopped by a couple of temples...






... and a candy store that was super cool and made me think of how much the Turners would love it... maybe uncle Paul will bring them to Kyoto someday for some candy! haha 

 They make these super cool rolled candy with little figures inside.. the kyoto pack had torii and little kimono girls! SOOO cute!

Then finally made it to Gion!! They say that if you are lucky you can see a geisha... I saw one even before getting into the main street!


Well, apparently she is a Geisha in training! A girl on instagram knew her and corrected me saying that she is not Geisha but a maiko (an apprentice.)
The area around Gion didn't have much to see so other than the built up excitement  that you might see a geisha there is nothing!


I decided to keep walking and check out some of the temples. I walked to Ninen-zaka and Kiyomizudera. Around the Gion area and the temple area there are some shops where you can rent a kimono and they do your hair and make up so I saw so many girls dressed up with Kimonos, and even little girls and men! I thought of doing it because it would be cool to have picture with the kimono but it was way too hot and walking looked uncomfortable.





This temple was one of my favorite... I just love love love all the bright colors, and the contrast with the roof and how pretty they look together!




From this temple I could see a nice view of Kyoto and Kyoto tower!



I then decided to take the bus to yet another temple and when we were by Gion I saw the Yasaka-jinja shrine that I forgot to visit and I quickly got out of the bus to check it out.




The busses in Kyoto are amazing! It's a little hard to understand the routes but once inside you get into your bus it tells you what stops to take for the different sights! Makes it super easy for tourists!


I then checked out Ginkakuji temple but it was not worth it, very out of the way and pretty much nothing to see! It is a nice little walk in the garden but that was it.


Path of philosophy 
Maybe philosophers came here to get inspired but I came to get frustrated! Nothing to see and I was getting wet!


Then I realized that my expectations were the ones getting on the way! I was expecting something very different and I was disappointed so I looked at this walk from a different point of view which was to just enjoy the moment and just like that I started to relax and enjoy the walk!

Then I took the bus to the biggest Torii I have ever seen in my entire life!





On  my way back to the hostel on the bus I saw an area that looked cool so I decided to get off the bus and walk without direction!
I loved walking through little streets and just see how life is here in Kyoto! I even got to see a Geisha walking to work that night!




This restaurant's pantry was the stairs!


My time in Kyoto was amazing! Then off to Hiroshima!!!


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About Post Author

Hi! It's me... Andrea! In 2016 I decided to drop everything and take a year to enrich my life and travel around the world. It turns out the world is just too big for 12 months! Still on the road and sharing my experience as a solo female traveler around the globe!

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About me




Hi! It's me... Andrea!

In this blog you can live vicariously through my journey around the world!

Please feel free to share tips or places to go!
Contact me: andreaheartstraveling@gmail.com