Tokyo and Kyoto: Two Days in Kyoto
After 3 days in Tokyo, we took a shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo to Kyoto. The train is extremely frequent, with departures approximately every 6 minutes, so advance reservations are not necessary. That said, we did elect to get reserved seats for the train ride to Kyoto to ensure we had a view of Mt Fuji from the right side of the train as we sped past. Despite going 200mph, the ride is remarkably smooth!
We arrived to Kyoto early afternoon, after a short two hour ride. Although we had been warned about crowds in Shinjuku Station, I think Kyoto Station was even more overwhelming! The station is massive, and like most stations in Japan, there is an equally massive department store built on top of the station. It is difficult to determine where the station ended and the department store began, and we found ourselves wandering around the store several times as we tried to find our way around. The 11th floor was designated “Sky Dining” with several restaurants around the periphery of the floor, with panoramic views of downtown Kyoto. This was a common arrangement among the train station/ department store combinations we visited, with casual dining in the basement nearest the station (ie to grab a to-go meal or bento box for a train ride) and sit-down dining on the upper levels of the store.
After enjoying a sushi lunch, we stored our luggage and walked to a nearby bike rental shop. Luggage storage is widespread and easy—we used the same IC card for lockers as we did for subway rides, making storage and retrieval simple. A short bike ride across town brought us to the Fushimi Inari shrine, famous for its thousands of Torii gates. Each gate, we learned, was donated by a different businessperson, a testament to Japan’s economic expansion in the late 20th century. The shrine is dedicated to Inari, the patron of business in Shintoism.
The crowds at the entrance and lower portion of the shrine were intense, but thankfully cleared out as we continued to climb the hillside that the shrine is built on. By the top of the climb, we were able to get some pictures of the iconic gates without including hundreds of tourists in each picture. Large crowds of tourists become a theme of Kyoto, owing to the popularity of the city combined with its relatively small size. Tokyo can easily absorb massive numbers of tourists with barely a change in the city’s character, Kyoto less so.
We retrieved up our luggage and continued onwards to our hotel, the Westin Miyako in eastern Kyoto. The hotel was outstanding, with incredible mineral baths and the most spacious rooms we encountered throughout our stay in Japan. It’s also the source of one of my favorite anecdotes about Japan and Japanese hospitality: the doormen were so attentive that they would hold open the automatic doors for us (i.e. would walk up to the doors ahead of us to cause them to open). Dinner that night was at Gion Uemori, a kaiseiki restaurant in Gion which featured both standard and vegetarian courses.
Our second day in Kyoto was spent in the northern portion of the city. We hiked from Kurama to Kuramadera Temple and onwards to the top of Mt Kurama, then down to Kifune to take the train back. Both locations were easily reachable by a scenic train ride which took us through a grove of bright red maple trees. We spent the afternoon walking around Nishiki Market, a vibrant street market with an abundance of lunch options (although we did not try the octopus balls).
The evening brought us to SiCX, a local gin distillery featuring innovative cocktails crafted from their own spirits—a must-visit for any gin enthusiast. Dinner followed at a Thai restaurant overlooking the Kamo River, providing a perfect end to our day.
The following day, we enjoyed a nice breakfast at the hotel and one final dip in the mineral springs of the hotel spa before returning to Kyoto Station for a shinkansen back to Tokyo Station for the final leg of our Japan trip.
Other Observations
- Non-stop mountains between Tokyo and Kyoto!
- Bullet train is smooth, even at 200mph. Some curves are banked to minimize the feeling of lateral acceleration.
- Regarding showering between entering an onsen: I think one is supposed to wash off while sitting? Everything is close to the ground
- Signs throughout Kyoto (and Tokyo) about where to evacuate to in case of an earthquake