Day 5 of 9-day trip to Japan

Another full day today visiting temples and gardens in the north-west of Kyoto, my first ramen of the trip, then an exploration of one of the markets downtown.

We got up early, had a Lawson breakfast, then took a bus. Bus day-passes really are the way to go in Kyoto as you can get them in advance at most convenience stores and there’s plenty of help online. Just beware which companies the passes are valid for. We only used Kyoto City Bus one-day passes for about 500 yen a day. It was a long bus ride the Golden Pavilion Temple (Kinkaku-ji) and we had a udon lunch in the neighbourhood.

The gardens were beautiful with the Autumn leaves. The place was quite busy but not crazy. The weather was slightly wet too, but nothing to worry about as the sun kept popping out and making the temple glow.

After walking around the lake and temple, we explored the surrounding woods.

Our next was a temple with a zen-garden and rock gardens in the grounds, called Ryōan-ji. I loved the wooden temple buildings and the long covered walkways, so serene with the Autumn leaves. Did I mention the Autumn leaves…? Again, quite a lot of people there but not enough to make it annoying. The rock gardens had moss and were very peaceful.

We took a nap on the bus back the downtown Kyoto and stopped at our first ramen restaurant. It was so good. Love me some pork broth ramen.

After our fill and a few glasses of sake, we went to a shopping district: Teramachi and Shinkyogoku Shopping Arcades plus the nearby Nishiki Market. This is a huge neighbourhood I’d never seen before. Covered streets of shops went on forever. The upscale area with high, covered avenues lie to the east of the more down-to-Earth Nishiki market. The find of the day was a cool cake making machine: there’s a video below. Another thing that caught my eye was a giant, 50,000 yen jumbo parfait; well a model of one you could presumably order! At Nishiki, there was a mini food and drink festival where you buy tickets to get a certain amount of food from the stalls in the part of the market. Quite fun, but we were pretty tired so spent most of the time trying to choose what to eat. We had some sweet things and a beer. This are is a day-trip in itself so I feel I need to return!

Another long day. I think by the time we got to the house, we had a few drinks then crashed.

Here’s a cake machine doing what it does best:

Maps