– After a three hour bullet train ride from Hiroshima, Vanessa and I arrived in Kyoto on August 18th and planned to stay for a couple days. Vanessa had been here before and I was excited as she knew of some fun areas we had to check out. This time, she would have a different experience as we were up to take the subway everywhere and not cabs, but in the end, we found the subway system in Kyoto to be really quick and easy to use so it was all good.
– The first night we wandered around the Ponto-cho district in search of dinner. I thought since Kyoto was more touristy, we would see more English menu’s at restaurants, but I was wrong. Most places were only in Japanese, so after we walked for a while, we saw a place with a big billboard that said “English Menu”, and as started to look, the chef was outside and started talking to us in English. He was able to explain the food and cooking concept and it looked great. As Monday was a slow night to eat out, we had the restaurant to ourselves and had a lot of personal time with the chef as he was cooking with us on a hot stone. We ended up having a wonderful meal of special cuts of meat cooked on a hot stone.
– One of my goals for Kyoto was to see and maybe stalk a Geisha. I was lucky to see my first Geisha that night as we were wondering around. As soon as she walked towards us, I got super giddy and excited and just wanted to chase after her. I turned to Vanessa and asked, “is it wrong it I follow her?” Vanessa hesitated for a moment and then said, “Yes”. Then I thought for another moment and said, “really….I want to follow to get a better photo but I’ll be right back.”. I know Vanessa was a little embarrassed I did this, but in the end, she was laughing and it was all in good fun. She did walk really fast in her wooden thongs, but with my long legs, I was able to walk quickly and catch up to her before she went to her next party and closed the doors on me. So Geisha stalking 101 was successful!
– Wednesday August 19th was due to be our big day in Kyoto where we would walk and see all the big sites or as many as we could handle in a day. I read that there was over 2,000 temples in Kyoto and there was no way I would ever see that many as I was already getting a little “templed out”. So Vanessa and I focused on the best ones. We started with Kiyomizu-dura which was the most ancient temple. It was high up on a hill, so we got to walk a lot uphill and were quite sweaty at 11am when we arrived. But once we were there, it was worth the hike as the view of the city was amazing and the temple was nestled into a forest which was a breathtaking setting.
– After the temple, we started to walk down Chawan-zaka (also known as teapot lane since that is all they sell there). After a little shopping, I thought maybe I would try on one of the kimono and obi (the special belt used to tie it up). All of a sudden, I realized this could be my Halloween outfit this year as I was going to return right before Halloween and not have time to find something, so Vanessa and I found a few and had the shop owner show me how to dress properly in it. I don’t know if I will be able to as it’s pretty tough and most the professional Geisha’s have dressers to do this…so I may need to have a friend over to help me dress into my Kimono. Now that I have my outfit…I just need to find a party to wear it to once I’m back.
So this is the Obi and wig I bought for Halloween back in New York after the trip. The white face paint was annoying!
– For the rest of the afternoon, we walked all over Gion, which is the old part of town known to have all the Geisha’s back in the old days. I did see a couple more Geisha’s in the streets and just took in the wonderful cobble stone streets, Japanese architecture and also the extreme heat. I think at one point, Vanessa and I were about to melt as it was super hot. We also found out the hard way, finding lunch in Kyoto wasn’t too easy. We walked around for a while, in a very popular and touristy area looking for lunch, but most of the restaurants were all closed until dinner time. We were starving and just walked and walked for a while before finding more closed doors. We were at the point of giving up and going to a 7-11 (as they have great bento boxes that are super fresh and tasty) and then we came across a place that was open, had an English menu and ended up being great. Sometimes…it’s the little things like finding food that can make the day a success.
– Our final night in Kyoto was out in search of a famous dumpling house. We read about this in the Lonely Planet and it sounded good. What was funny was when we got there, it was the smallest place ever with one table and about 8 stools at the counter. The place was called Senmonten and all they made was dumplings (only meat or tofu). It was fun as we saw a woman next to us making them fresh and then across the counter we saw the man cooking them right before our eyes. They were some of the best dumplings ever and we stayed and had more and more as they were just that good. We had tried to go here for lunch, but it was one of the places that was closed and it was worth coming back for dinner (very casual, cheap but tasty dumplings).
– Vanessa highly recommended going out to Arashiyama, which is another city about half an hour outside of Kyoto and is known to have a large bamboo forest. It sounded great to me and we were off on a local train. Arashiyama is in the western mountains of Kyoto and was a quaint smaller town. We first wandered about another temple and Japanese garden, which a lovely little pond out back. Then we came upon the grand bamboo forest. It was so amazing with tall bamboo trees to walk through. These photos may look familiar as they were filmed in the movie “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. I never saw the whole movie, as I have to admit I fell asleep during it, but I may have to rent this movie again to see the bamboo forest in the movie. Right after we left the forest and were on our way back to the train, I got super excited as I saw more Geisha’s sitting in rickshaws. It seemed so strange to see three Geisha’s here, but maybe there were on their way to a special tea party. It was more fun to check out the rickshaw drivers, as these men were some of the buffest men ever with legs that were huge and rock hard (as they run to pull the rickshaws and up to two adults in them). Vanessa and I were just starring at the legs as they were that unbelievable!
– So that ends our time in Kyoto. It was short, but after all the other cities I have been to, I felt I spent enough time in Kyoto and was ready to head off to Tokyo for the last part of my time in Japan.
Logistics:
ANA Hotel: This was the only hotel we had to find on our own (as no Intercontinental or Crowne Plaza for us here). It was about $120 a night as we found the special on hotels.com. Since it was about the same as a guest house….we did it and it was very close to the subway so easy to get around. www.ana-hkyoto.com
Senomonten – great dumplings for dinner only – tel:531-2733 in Hanomikoji-dori, Shinbashi area