Lost in Japan Part 3: From Tokyo's Buzz to Kyoto's Calm

Ever wondered how a simple train ride could redefine a family's travel experience? Our adventure from Tokyo's vibrant hustle and bustle to Kyoto's serene cultural landscape unfolds with the thrill of our first Shinkansen bullet train journey. We explore the fascinating world of Ekiben boxes, the delightful meal tradition that accompanies travelers on this iconic rail adventure. Experience the meticulous punctuality of Japanese trains, as we transition into Kyoto's enchanting tapestry of temples, pagodas, and peaceful parks, setting the stage for unforgettable memories.

As we settle into the charming Hotel Alza Kyoto, conveniently nestled near Sanjo Station and the Kamo River, the city's historic heart becomes our playground. Our early morning visit to Kiyomizu-dera offers breathtaking views and a chance to connect with Kyoto's rich cultural heritage before the crowds arrive. From tranquil shrine visits to the mesmerizing atmosphere of Gion under the glow of lanterns, our exploration of Kyoto is both a cultural immersion and a journey into tranquility.

The journey doesn't end there. A nostalgic day trip to Nara brings encounters with friendly bowing deer and a taste of creamy indulgence with Cremia ice cream. Back in Kyoto, our culinary adventure features standout dining at Genko Sanjo Hoten and the quaint Hanamakiya, offering a flavor-packed conclusion to our journey. We round off our Japan series with reflections on global travel's joys and challenges, inviting listeners to join our ongoing journey, share their stories, and connect with the beauty of exploring the world.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Flight 527, runway 8K. You're cleared for takeoff. This is your captain speaking. If you love travel, and we know you do, buckle your seatbelts and keep your tray tables in the upright position. You should be seeing the illuminated fun signs throughout the aircraft because we're about to take off on a chat of epic proportions. Welcome to Tray Tables and Time Zones, the podcast where travel isn't just about taking vacations, it's about enriching your life. We'll dive into the highs, the lows and the downright absurd moments that come with exploring the world. Whether it's food poisoning on a long-haul flight, trekking to Mount Everest Base Camp or traveling to Disney parks worldwide, we cover it all Serious at moments, but mostly we're here to laugh and share some brutally honest travel stories. So let's do it one time zone at a time. This is Trey Tableson Time Zones, and this is your host, josh. Bogle Tables and Time Zones, and this is your host, josh.

Speaker 2 1:06

Bogle. Hey everyone and welcome back to another episode of Trade Tables and Time Zones. I'm your host, josh Bogle, and on this episode we wrap up our Japan series with a trip to Kyoto. Ah, kyoto, just the sound of that name brings a nice calm over myself and helps me relax, especially coming from Tokyo. You know they say Kyoto is the cultural heart of Japan and I think that's about as dead on a description of a city as you can have on a description of a city as you can have. Despite being a city of almost 1.5 million people, it feels very calming and relaxed when you're there. And I think a lot of that goes back to the cultural heart of Japan, because there are so many temples and pagodas and shrines and parks and access to these very quiet areas of the city around the mountains and on the edge, that give it this feeling. And I think that's only intensified by the fact that on our trip, at least we had spent the first part of that trip in Tokyo and then come from Tokyo to Kyoto. So again, even though it's still a very large city, coming from the largest city in the world to Kyoto, you got that real heavy sense of calm and of relaxation just based on the simple fact that you were in such a smaller place. So I completely agree with the cultural heart of Japan moniker and I think that fits about as well as any moniker could for Kyoto.

Speaker 2 3:01

So how do you get to Kyoto, especially if you're coming from Tokyo? Well, I mean, there's several ways that you can do this. One you can fly, right, and while it's a very short flight and fairly inexpensive, you do have the built-in time of having to get to the airport, go through security, get on a plane, fly down there, then get out of the airport and all those things. You can drive, obviously, if you have like a rental car. Or you can take a bus. There's bus service between Kyoto and Tokyo and vice versa, you know, throughout the day and night. And then the other way, which is the way we went with, is to take the Shinkansen. You know the bullet train, and this is kind of the traditional route to go from Tokyo to Osaka or to Kyoto. You take the bullet train, and so that's what we did. That was a pretty neat experience because my wife and my kids they had never had the opportunity to ride the bullet train before we went to the train station, at Tokyo Station, which is one of the main locations to get on the Shinkansen in Tokyo, and we had a. It was a fairly early ride. I mean it wasn't too bad. I think it was around 11 o'clock, and the reason we timed that out it's about a two and a half hour ride down to Kyoto, and so we wanted to get there early enough in the day where we didn't lose that day, but close enough to where, when we got into Kyoto, we could get over to our hotel and get checked in and wouldn't have to wait around to get into our room. And so we left around 11 or so.

Speaker 2 4:38

But before we did, we did one of the most Japanese things you can ever do, and that is we looted the Ekiben store, right. So we went and we bought a bunch of Ekiben boxes so that we would have food and snacks to eat on the train, and we got a bunch. I think we got, oh good God, probably six or seven of them. Anyway, we got a lot and of all kinds, right. Like some had fish, some had crab, some had beef. I even picked up one of the beef ones that had the pull tab, so it actually heats itself up. It's freaking amazing. And so we got all that stuff together, got our drinks, we got up on the platform. And so we got all that stuff together, got our drinks, we got up on the platform. My son instantly sees some of the little model train souvenirs in a little shop on the platform. So we ended up with that and we just hung out for a little while in one of the air-conditioned little rooms until the train arrived.

Speaker 2 5:46

Of course, as with pretty much anything train related in Japan, it arrived right on time. It was very quick to load onto the train, put your bags away, sit down and before you knew it, we were off Right, and that, in and of itself, always amazes me when I'm in Japan. I don't think I've talked about this yet, but it's the timeliness of the trains right, not only local trains, but the Shinkansen. And so, like I said, train pulled in right on time and we got on, found our seats and off we went, and we had actually made these reservations pretty far in advance, and so we were able to pick our seats and our car and all those things ahead of time. So it was really easy. There was no guessing. So we get on the train and we start moving.

Speaker 2 6:33

I think there was a stop at Yokohama station and then after that we were pretty much cruising all the way to Kyoto. We got moving and man, we got moving fast, quick, and we were just tooling along. My son and my daughter were both pretty amazed at how fast the train was going along and how smooth it was. I'm always amazed by that. You know. It's an incredibly comfortable, smooth ride on those trains, especially considering the speed you're moving at.

Speaker 2 7:01

And so we busted into the Ekiben boxes and had ourselves a little picnic. You know, handing food back and forth across the aisle. It was great. It was a lot, a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed doing that. I enjoy eating on the train like that every time. It's such a tradition. I mean, you could just see and hear the boxes opening up all around us for all the other people on the train as they were getting out there a little food to have and eat. And, by the way, the one that heated up the beef, it was phenomenal. It was like kind of a sweet sauce, marinated, really thin cut beef on rice, and it warmed it up really nice. So it wasn't cold or even room temperature, it was. It was warm and it was fantastic. Anyway, we ate up all of our food and really before you knew it you were getting to Kyoto. I mean, it's not, it doesn't take very long at all and it's really nice because you don't have so much of the front end and back end effort on the train as you do, you know, like going through the airport right, so you don't have to go through all the crazy amounts of security and walking all over the terminal and getting on the plane and all that mess. So it was really easy.

Speaker 2 8:13

When we got to Kyoto station and we had thought about taking the train, because where we were staying there was a train station pretty close and so it would have been an easy walk. But, like I think I mentioned in my Tokyo episode, the exchange rate right now on the yen versus the dollar is so good for Americans that we just decided to heck with it and we took a cab from the station to the hotel, from the station to the hotel Super easy and super fast and didn't cost hardly anything. I mean it was really really reasonable. And we kind of wanted to give the cab thing a shot in Kyoto because some of the places we were going to go were a bit away from the local train stations, right. So there was going to be some walking involved and we were there in the summer, so it was hot.

Speaker 2 9:08

I mean it was really hot, really humid, and you know we live in South Texas and we know heat and humidity and I will say that Japan was really really hot and humid when we were there. We knew that going in. But you know we didn't have a lot of time to work with. We wanted to be able to be there for a long enough time to get several things done, you know, including Tokyo and Kyoto. So we just basically had to go during the summer when the kids were out of school and we had the time available. So that's why we were there in the summertime and not another time of year where the weather was cooler, where the weather was cooler. So, anyway, we knew it was going to be hot and so to avoid constantly sweating like pigs from walking all over during the heat in the middle of the day, we tried to use cabs when we could and, like I said, because the price was so good, it wasn't a big deal at all. I mean it was really reasonable getting around Kyoto via cab, and I downloaded the GoTaxi app and it worked flawlessly in Japan. So, anyway, really easy to do. So we got in a cab and headed over to the hotel. I think it was about a 20 minute ride, nothing bad.

Speaker 2 10:17

Now where we stayed, I'll talk about the area first and then I'll get into the hotel. So there's an area in Kyoto a lot of people have probably heard of or at least seen pictures or video of this area, and whether you knew the name or not doesn't really matter. But the area is called Gion, and in Gion that is basically the old city. When you see really pretty pictures of Kyoto, you know where people have taken pictures and you see, like, maybe, a geisha in the background, or you see the lanterns on the streets and the lower buildings. You know kind of the low slung, more traditional buildings or those street shots where there's, like you know, umbrellas kind of up against the buildings and the buildings are all wood and they kind of look worn and they're low to the ground. Okay, that area is Gion, right? So that's where most of those shots and video come from.

Speaker 2 11:08

We just so happened to find a hotel that was a lot like Mamoru that I talked about in the previous episode in Tokyo, but this one was not quite a apartment style but yet it was right. It wasn't as broken up and didn't have like a kitchen like the Mamaru Hotel did, but it had a big dining area and it had two queen beds and then a big couch bed, so everybody got their own place to sleep and big bathroom, and so we had plenty of area to sit and eat If we had something to eat at the room to lounge. You know it was a nice spot. So the hotel we ended up picking was called the Hotel Alza Kyoto and it sits just south of Sanjo Station, right on the Kamo River. It's in a really cool area because you've got access up to San Joe Station and also to the bridge that crosses over into the main part of town, and also you are right at the kind of like northwest corner of Guion, so you've got access to all of Guion anytime you want.

Speaker 2 12:25

So it was a great location because you could walk and explore a lot of Guion easily from the hotel. But you also had access over to the more commercialized side on the Western side where there was a lot of restaurants and shopping and things like that. So it turned out to be a spectacular hotel to stay in, especially if you were there for the older, traditional style of Kyoto, right, if you were there to see the old style buildings and the shrines and the temples and all of those types of things. This really puts you in the heart of that area. And it also made it very easy to get to those further flung areas like Fushimi Inari, which is the red gates, red torii gates right. It was very easy to get to from this area as well, just because you're already on the proper side of the river. So it's a great location and the Hotel Alza I would seriously recommend to anyone, not only if you had kids or a larger group, but even if it's just a husband and wife. They have rooms for that as well and it's just a. It's a very, very nice small hotel in a very, very good location, so it's really really hard to beat. So I would highly recommend this and you know I did a lot of research and reading and looking at reviews and videos and all that, and this is kind of where I landed at this hotel, because I obviously needed a bigger room for our group, but I'll tell you I really lucked into finding it, in that it just happened to be so good and so worth it that I would recommend it to anyone.

Speaker 2 14:18

So what do you do when you're in Kyoto? Well, as I said, it's named the cultural heart of Japan for a reason it has a ton of beautiful shrines, pagodas, temples, various types of religious buildings and compounds that you can go check out. And so we decided to start kind of in the southern end of Gion and work our way back north toward our hotel. So in our first big day in Kyoto, we decided to really try to pack in as much as we possibly could of the really cultural part of that cultural heart of Japan. Right, we wanted to see a lot of the shrines, a lot of the temples and luckily, you know, staying in Gion, we were really at that doorstep. So what we decided to do was to start in southern Gion and then walk back north and hit all of the different temples and pagodas along the way, and so that's kind of what we did.

Speaker 2 15:29

We started at Kimo Mizudera, which you've probably seen, pictures of which a lot of these places you will have seen at some point in shows about Japan or if you had any interest in Japan and looking around the internet or whatever, you would have seen most of these places, and this is one of those. So it's this huge shrine that's made completely out of wood that sets upon the edge of this little valley, and this whole complex is this large shrine area and the temples and everything in this little compound, but the main part is this giant wooden building and it is absolutely spectacular to go see and not only does it show you kind of the valley area and over all the other buildings that are included in this, in this facility, but also it gives you a really, really cool view over kyoto, because you're pretty, you're up pretty high and you can see the kind of the city laid out in front of you. It's a gorgeous spot. Now we'll say that here again, the key is to go early, at least for us. We found that out, so we ended up going. I'm trying to think, okay. So one thing to be aware of when you're visiting these temples in Kyoto is that some of them are open 24 hours a day and some of them have, you know, opening and closing hours. So Kiyomiya's Mizudera had actual hours. It opened at 6 am, it's open at 6 am, and then the closings vary depending on the season and if there was any specific event going on during that time, but it's always open at 6 am. So what we tried to do was to plan to be there about as close as we could to that time, because we knew it was going to get busy.

Speaker 2 17:46

This is one of the most popular places in all of Kyoto for tourists to visit, whether they're from Japan or they're foreigners like us. It seems that this place attracts a ton of people, and so we went very early. I think we may have left our hotel around six o'clock and because we were leaving so early, we went ahead and got a cab to the location and he was able to drop us off pretty close. There's like a shopping street of these traditional, you know, shops and restaurants that kind of lead right up to the main gate, that kind of lead right up to the main gate, and so he dropped us off there and we were able to make this little inclined walk up toward the main gate and we got there. I mean, I think probably around 630. By doing so it really paid off, because for pretty much the entire time that we were walking around the grounds, and especially when we were looking at the main building, this wooden structure, it's called a hondo. It was very, very quiet, not a lot of people at all around. But when we were leaving the tour, buses and the kind of hordes of people were coming up that same road toward the entry gate and so we timed it out pretty well to avoid all those people, because there was a lot of people coming toward the temple at that time.

Speaker 2 19:11

So I would definitely suggest get to Kiyomizudera as soon as you can in the morning, as close as you can to that 6 am opening, because it'll make it a much more peaceful, relaxing experience. Because the closer you get to around that eight o'clock time, the busier it gets and it just continues to pile on throughout the day. So definitely get there as early as you can. So from there we decided to basically stroll and just take a nice long walk back north toward the hotel. So by the time we left the temple I was ready for some coffee. It was around 830 in the morning and I hadn't had any caffeine yet, so I was ready for some.

Speaker 2 20:01

Luckily, very close to where we were is the Nananzaka Slope, and the Nananzaka Slope is very near probably one of the most unique Starbucks in the entire world, because this Starbucks is built inside of a traditional house in Gion, so it's very representative of the old style of building homes in Kyoto and they've nestled this Starbucks into it. It's two stories kind of. You know you get your coffee and everything on the first floor and there are some seating in the first floor, but then you can go upstairs as well. Luckily, when we went it was right as it was starting to rain, and so we were able to kind of hide out in the Starbucks, have some coffee, eat a few pastries and wait out the rain to continue our stroll through Guillaume. So it worked out really well and even if you're not a big fan of Starbucks which I'm actually not I'm not that huge of a fan of Starbucks, but this was really cool to get to see Because they've been able to maintain the cultural integrity of the house and kind of slip a Starbucks in there with it. So it's really well done and it's worth a stop to grab some coffee and check it out.

Speaker 2 21:26

From there, all caffeinated up, we continued north and we went to Kodachai Temple another I mean, they're all beautiful another beautiful temple along the route back toward our hotel. It's a Buddhist temple, very cool, like Zen gardens, and so we went into this one, and the cool thing here is there's a trail it's kind of like a one-way trail that leads you around some of the buildings and the temple and some of the gardens, and there was a nice koi pond and it was very peaceful right. But along this trail there's a bamboo forest, and so we were able to walk through this bamboo forest and really this one kind of took the place of going to Arashima, because we didn't go to Arashima, and Arashima is the really famous bamboo forest that sits south of Kyoto, in the far south. And the reason we didn't go is one we had heard that the crowds were really bad, especially this time of year, and that you really couldn't avoid the crowds, and we were really trying really hard just to not get caught up in a mass of people. We had been in Tokyo around tons of people, and so we were trying to find places that we didn't necessarily have to deal with a huge amount of people at every turn, and so we decided not to go there, especially when we had heard that there were some other bamboo forests that you could visit and that were not nearly as busy. Well, this was one of them and it was actually really really cool to walk through it because it's just bamboo as far as you can see on either side of the path and it's really thick right and big stalks of it. But it was really nice and a really good alternative to facing the craziness that is, you know, going to Arashima.

Speaker 2 23:29

So from that temple we continued on toward what's known as the Ashisaka Shrine and it's a really big Shinto shrine that sits right in the middle of this big park area in Gion. That was another just spectacular temple to go to and one of the cool things about that is when you leave there, there's this little vendor area that's kind of within the gates of the shrine and it's a lot of little food stalls and food stands so you can stop and get you something to eat, little snacks, you know, here and there little Kobe beef on a stick and little crab sticks and things like that. So it's really really another great shrine to see, not to mention, all along this walk you're in this Gion area. It's just like stepping back in time, right, because it's all very traditional these traditional lamps, the streets are really narrow and mostly walking streets. I mean there's some cars that come down through there in certain areas, but for the most part it's very much pedestrian friendly and it's just a very, very cool area to kind of step back in time in Japan to see.

Speaker 2 24:43

You know, from there we made our way back toward the hotel and hung out for a while and just kind of step back in time in Japan to see you know from there. We made our way back toward the hotel and hung out for a while and just kind of recouped from it and then spent the rest of the day strolling around Gion and just taking in the atmosphere, you know, looking in the little shops and the little restaurants and checking all of that out. It's just such a cool place to go stroll and then even that night, once it got dark, we went out and man, it's just spectacular at night because all those little lanterns and lights on the streets light up and you'll be walking along the little canals and the little creeks in the area and across the way will be these very high end sushi or kaiseki restaurants and you can kind of see in the windows and see them in there working. The shifts are in there working and everything. It's really really just a beautiful area to see, and so we really enjoyed that getting to just kind of stroll around and take in that train coldness.

Speaker 2 25:42

So while we were still in the area, we figured we would take advantage of being in that part of Japan and jump on the train to Nara. If you've heard of Nara before, or even if you haven't, this is again like several places in Kyoto. It may not be a place that you know by name, but likely you've seen video or pictures of it throughout your life, and that is because Nara is the place that is famous for the bowing deer. Once my kids heard about this place, you know there was no getting out of going and frankly I was excited. My wife was excited to go. Anyway, we wanted to do it. You don't get to see something like that every day, where there's literally deer in a park in the middle of a city and they're all hanging out and they want you to feed them all. I mean it's pretty wild.

Speaker 2 26:55

So we hopped on the train, took a limited express line so there was no real stops down to Nara and, like I said, I think it line right, which is a different train company that has trains that run from Kyoto station down to Nara, and that's the one you want to take. And the reason is Kentetsu station is right at the edge of the park where the deer are. We got in, got to the station and headed east toward the park and you pretty much follow the crowds, because there's a lot of crowd, but it's still. It's a blast. There's plenty of room. It's not, you know, it's not overwhelming by any stretch. And where all the deer are is basically this huge park in the middle of the town. So there's plenty of room.

Speaker 2 27:45

And as you're walking along I mean it was the weirdest thing you just kind of look over and there's like a couple of deer back at the intersection.

Speaker 2 27:53

I mean you know that they're going to be there but at the same time, when you see it, it kind of throws you off and you're just like what the hell? You know, why the hell are these things in the middle of a city with all these people, and why are they that damn close to all these people? Then you cross over the street and you'll come across your first vendor that sell these little I don't know. They almost look like little Stroop waffles, right, they're little, these little biscuits that are made just for the deer. And so you want to buy these because you're only supposed to feed the deer these biscuits, these because you're only supposed to feed the deer, these biscuits. But as soon as you get one of those bags, the damn deer know that shit and they will come after you. They're not super aggressive, but you have to kind of parse out your crackers, you know, or your little treats, because if you just start handing them out really fast, the deer will realize that.

Speaker 2 28:41

And if you stop, I mean they'll nip at you and you'll feel a tug on the back of your shirt, where they grabbed a hold of your shirt and pulled on it to try to get your attention. So you know, while they're not like super mean or super aggressive, they want their snack and so they are not above you know, taking a bite of clothing and kind of giving you a little jerk to let you know that they're there. It was actually a really fun experience and I think we bought several bags of the little crackers and fed a lot of the deer while we were making the big stroll through the park and then up to, like, todai Shrine, which was really cool to see, and there's a lot of vendors that are selling like ice cream and things like that. And if you know, you know about soft serve ice cream in Japan. It's crazy good, and so there was actually a spot there at the park that was selling the Cremia brand, and I know about Cremia because I saw something about it on YouTube. I'd had it before in Japan. They actually have a place at Narita. It was specially designed, not only the machines but the ice cream itself, and I forget how long they said, it took them to perfect the recipe, but it is so creamy and so full of like milk fats it is amazing. I mean it's like milk flavor and it's crazy good. Well, there was a vendor that had Creamia ice cream there in Nara, so, needless to say, we purchased four cones of that little coldness of joy and enjoyed those right there and then, like I said, continued to stroll around the park and some of the temples and such there, then started working our way back, stopped and had some coffee to take a break, did a little bit of window shopping through all the little shopping areas there near the train station and eventually hopped on the train. Really, really cool thing to see. Even getting headbutted here and there and nipped at by the deer was fine, because it was just a neat thing to see that you don't get to experience every day. So I'm glad we did it. It was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 30:55

And so then we reached our last full day being in Kyoto, and really that last day we only had two things planned, because we wanted to be able to kind of get ourselves situated before we headed back to Tokyo, because the next day we were taking the train back to Tokyo. Be in Tokyo for one night and then the very next morning we would be heading to the airport to fly back to the US. So for our last day, the two places that we really wanted to visit were Fushimi andari, which is the Torii Gates the red Torii Gates I'm sure you've seen in pictures or in shows about Japan and Kinkaku-ji, which is a Buddhist temple. It's also known as the Golden Pavilion, and so those were the two places that we really wanted to go see. Again, just like we had done the previous days, we decided that we would get up super early and try to beat most of the crowds to Fushimi and Ari so that we could get into the tour gates and hopefully we wouldn't see a whole bunch of people, right, we would have them relatively to ourselves. We knew there was going to be people there, but we were trying to limit the amount of people there. We wanted to get some really good pictures, if we could, and just kind of experience it in more of a calm, quiet setting.

Speaker 2 32:09

We left the hotel somewhere between 6 and 6.30, went to Fushimi Inari and we completely lucked out because it was not busy at all, I mean at all. There was a few groups here and there, but nothing like the craziness that you would experience in the middle of the day. We were actually able to start our hike up through the Torrey Gates with relatively no one around. In fact, I put some of the pictures up on Instagram visiting Fushimi and Ari, and there's many of them where there's no one in the pictures. There was no one there, which is very rare. It's hard to get pictures at Fushimi Inari with no one in them because there's just always people there, right? It's a huge tourist attraction. I mean, where else are you going to see, you know, over 10,000 red torii gates that work their way up these trails all the way up to the summit of this mountain.

Speaker 2 33:08

Now, we were not going to attempt to summit the mountain and go through all the torii gates because I don't know that my two kids would have enjoyed that very much, so we didn't drag them up the whole thing. But we went pretty far up the the trail and they've done a really good job, because there's like these little traditional stops along the way, along the trails that have you know where you can get like snacks and drinks, and there's little tea houses or little noodle shops along the way, and we made it about halfway up. At that point my wife and my daughter kind of split off and they wanted to go look at some little other side trails and then work their way back down, and my son was feeling motivated. So we continued on up and hiked on up further. We made it a pretty good ways up the side of the mountain and then we decided you know what, it's starting to get hot, starting to get sweaty, let's start heading back down. And so that's what we did, and we made our way back through the winding trails that lead out of Fushimi Inari, through some very pretty small cemeteries and got to pet on some temple cats that were hanging out in and around these areas, and then strolled back down and finally met back up with my wife and daughter at the bottom.

Speaker 2 34:27

That was just a. That was one of those iconic Japanese experiences. Right, it's just something that you can't experience anywhere else but in Japan, and it's. It was so peaceful and quiet and just beautiful. Walking through all these Torii gates, you know, they just went on forever and ever and ever, and they were really big and there were some smaller ones and then they'd go back to being really big for a long way and it was a cool experience. I was super happy to have it.

Speaker 2 34:56

So from Fushimi Inari we made our way over to our last big stop of the trip and that was to Kinkaku-ji, which is the Buddhist temple that is also known as the Golden Pavilion. This area was more north and back to the west of the city and so, again, we just jumped in a cab just to make it easy and rode over there to check it out and this I don't know. There was a lot of really pretty cool temples in Kyoto and I think Gion was easily my favorite area, to you know, just to go strolling around in really peaceful. It wasn't huge, it wasn't a huge area, but just that building which was a residence at some point, literally covered in gold leaf. It's beautiful and it has a lot of gardens and ponds around it. It's extremely peaceful, very traditional. It's definitely worth a visit.

Speaker 2 36:12

I really, really enjoyed it and, like a lot of places in Japan, after we saw the cultural sites, there was a lovely little cafe that was part of the complex and we went in there and cooled down a little bit, had some drinks and had some snacks, had some sweets. So that was pretty much our last stop in Kyoto, as far as sights go, and while I was getting to the point of being templed out, and if you know what templed out means, more than likely you've been to Thailand. When you first go to Thailand, you go and you see all the Buddhist temples and after a certain number of them and everybody has their own threshold you get templed out. You just can't go to any more. You've just you've seen, I mean, even though they're amazing to see and they're beautiful and they're moving and all of those things, you just you can't look at another one.

Speaker 2 37:09

I was very much appreciative that I hadn't crossed over that threshold before the Golden Pavilion, because I loved it, but once we had done it, I was, I was pretty much done. You took all the temples and shrines that we had seen in Kyoto, add them to the ones we saw in Tokyo, and I was templed out. At that point I was, I was done. So we were, we were nearing the end of our trip and that was probably good because I was templed out. At that point I was, I was done, so we were, we were nearing the end of our trip and that was probably good because I was starting to starting to to get tired of seeing them because they were all starting to look the same. But that happens, that's you know, it's just the way it is. So, like I said, that was pretty much the end of our tour day Kyoto.

Speaker 2 37:49

We had seen a lot, experienced a lot, realized just how magical and beautiful Kyoto is, and I will say it's definitely a place that I will go back to see because, while Tokyo probably still has my heart as far as just sheer love of the city, going to Kyoto after Tokyo is a wonderful experience because it kind of allows you to unwind from the craziness of Tokyo. So because of that and because of you know just the atmosphere, and it's also a city of amazing food. You know, and it's also a city of amazing food, we didn't get to do any of the really high-end omakase sushi or the high-end kaiseki restaurants in Kyoto, just because the kids were with us and they're not into the really intricate avant-garde style of food and so they wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much as we would have, my wife and I. So we tried to temper the meals with them in mind, but at the same time, if we were to come back, especially if it was just my wife and I. I would definitely take advantage of those things because there is some amazing food to be had in Kyoto and there was other sites that we missed. You know that we would definitely go see the next time, but it is a great place to go when you want to slow down but you're not ready to go, you know, really far out into the countryside of Japan.

Speaker 2 39:28

Kyoto is a pretty great place just to slow down and enjoy more of a cultural experience in Japan. So, speaking of restaurants, I will suggest two restaurants in Kyoto that are worth your time. One is called Genko Sanjo Hoten and it is on Sanjo Dori, which is very close to where our hotel was. It's on the west side of the Camo River, so you literally come out of like Sanjo Station, walk across the bridge or over the river and it's the first group of buildings on the right. On the north side of the street is where this restaurant's at, and it is a Japanese restaurant, but it is kind of like an overview. It doesn't focus on any one thing. It has a high level overview of Japanese cuisine as a whole, so you can get pretty much anything in this place. So if you have, you know kids with you or picky eaters or someone that doesn't you know really want to be into like really super high level sushi or kaiseki meals or things like that.

Speaker 2 40:42

This is a really great place to come and kind of dip your toe into various Japanese cuisines, and that's kind of why we booked table here. The hotel actually took care of the reservations for us and it was really nice there was four of us. They put us in kind of a little room almost, so we kind of had a private room to ourselves and I don't know if that was just to get us out of the way or just because we had a larger group, but nevertheless we ordered a ton of food here and it was all stuff that we could kind of hand around to each other and try and it was everything from some sushi and some tempura. We had a big variety of everything and it was all very tasty right. It was really enjoyable. It was a good meal. Service was a little slow, but all in all, a great place to go and hang out and take your time, try a bunch of different kinds of food and kind of get an introduction to the various forms of Japanese food.

Speaker 2 41:50

Get a introduction to the various forms of Japanese food and the second restaurant. We kind of just found it doing some searching around, and this restaurant is very near the Golden Pavilion and this restaurant is called Hanamakiya and it is basically across the street from the Golden Pavilion down one of the side streets. If you go to the Golden Pavilion and you happen to be there either when you want to eat something or at lunchtime, I would highly recommend this place. We got there about 10 or 15 minutes before they opened. There was already about six or eight people ahead of us waiting in the line, and you know how they say in Japan if there's a big line in front of a place, get in it, because at the end of that line is probably something really tasty. This was no different, right? So we wrote our name on the sheet and then we kind of sat down. They have a little seating area outside, free to wait.

Speaker 2 42:48

As soon as they opened, we all went in. We got one of the first tables and this place is Soba. They do Soba and it is so good. I mean amazing. A lot of Soba, soba with tempura, you know. Cold Soba, hot Soba, amazing. I had a bowl of soba noodles and then I had a big tempura don, like bowl of rice, but instead of tempura it had unagi, right the freshwater eel, and it had the sweet sauce that was kind of basted onto it as it was grilled. It was spectacular. My daughter got tempura soba, my son got tempura soba and I think my wife did as well. Some of them got it cold, some of them got it hot, and it was so good. I think everybody in our family agreed that this was one of the absolute best meals we had had in Japan. It was a small shop, very quaint, but just beautiful food, I mean presented beautifully. It tasted amazing. It was really kind of the cherry on top of that last day to have such a tasty traditional meal that we all just absolutely loved.

Speaker 2 44:16

After that we went back to the hotel and gathered up all of our clothes, you know, went and went down the street and washed a few clothes and things like that and basically prepared to hop on the train the next morning and go back to tokyo and we rode this. Rinkonsen got some more ekiben boxes because I had to get them in, and we rode back to tokyo. We spent the night in yueno at a mamaru hotel, like we uh, like we had stayed at previously, did some last minute shopping and strolled around a little bit, got up the next morning and headed to the airport and flew home that day on a Zip Air, which I talked about in one of the other episodes. All that said, I was pleasantly surprised by Kyoto.

Speaker 2 45:07

I thought it would be amazing, but I was afraid it would be a little boring because of coming off the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, and at that point I had spent almost all of my time in all my previous visits to Japan in Tokyo, so I didn't really necessarily know what to expect in Kyoto. I knew I would like it, but I didn't know how much I would like it, and leaving Kyoto, it definitely left an impression on me. It's one of those places that you want to come back to because there's not only more to explore, both from a sightseeing and cultural side, but a culinary side as well. But it's just such a relaxed, calming location that, man, it really pulls at you to come back, and I have no doubt that I will make my way back to Kyoto for a nice extended period of time to take in more of the city and enjoy all it has to offer, because it is a absolutely spectacular, spectacular place to visit. Well, that'll wrap up this episode on Kyoto and this will actually wrap up this series on Japan.

Speaker 2 46:25

I have to tell you I really, really enjoyed doing this series and kind of reliving that trip to Japan and all my trips to Japan, because it is certainly a place that I hold near and dear to my heart. I loved it from the second I first visited there and every time that I've spent since then has just been fantastic, and every time I leave I'm always ready to go back. So it was really really kind of cool to relive that experience through this series and I hope the suggestions and the information that we provided in this series will help you when you go to Japan for the first time or the next time. There's so much to see and do there that it's always good to hear other suggestions from other folks that have been there and have experienced something and can tell you whether it downright sucks, it's just a big wad of shit, or if it's a really good place to go. So I hope this series has done that for you and has given you some inspiration or some ideas about what you might want to see or what you might not want to see or experience when you're in Japan, but I hope it pushes you to go to Japan, especially if you haven't been before, because Japan is one of those great countries in the world that I would wish that everyone could visit at least once in their lifetime, because it's an amazing, amazing place and it certainly has a big part of my travel. Heart is tied up with Japan and I think it probably always will be. I really enjoy the country. I enjoy the people, the culture, the food. Everything about it is a really unique and enjoyable experience. So I hope you take the time to someday get over there and experience Japan and all it has to offer, and I hope this series boosted that interest in you All.

Speaker 2 48:24

Right before I get out of here, I've got to give you one last little bit, and that is if you enjoyed the episode, please take the time out to rate and review it wherever you listen to podcasts. We really appreciate that. We got a couple of new ratings on Spotify here lately and those are really, really appreciated, and so you know if you can take the time to go to Spotify or Apple or wherever you can rate and review the podcast and give us those five star ratings. We would greatly appreciate it, because that really helps boost the podcast. Also, like I mentioned in this episode, check out our Instagram, as I will be posting a lot of the pictures from the places that I talked about in this episode on Instagram. That post will go up pretty much at the same time as the episode. So be sure and take a look at that and you can kind of see the places that I was talking about in this episode and it'll give you that visual, not only just the vocal side of it. Please feel free to check us out on Facebook, on TikTok and on Instagram. We would really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 49:35

And lastly, as I always say, if you know someone who's into travel or is wanting to get into travel, please share the show with them. Just share it with whoever you can, and that again will help us get more and more listens and help us grow and allow this podcast to keep going and keep providing those stories and information that I'm really really enjoying sharing. But again, I really appreciate everyone listening to the episodes. It means the world to me and I can't thank you enough for doing so. So thanks again for listening and I'll see you on the next episode. Bye.

Speaker 1 50:17

This has been Trade Tables and Time Zones. Worldwide travel is one of the funnest things you can do in life and it's our passion to talk about the good, the bad, the funny and the ugly. Nothing is off limits. We hope you've enjoyed the show. If you did, make sure to like, rate and review. We'll be back soon, but in the meantime, find us on Instagram at Trade Tables and Time Zones, and for questions or comments, send your email to tradesandtimes at gmailcom. Take care and see you next time on Trade Tables and Time Zones.