TripRoundUnder

Jumping back on the Shinkansen for our trip to Kyoto, we were again amazed by the speed and the smoothness of the train! If only Seaford to Adelaide railway line was this efficient. In saying this, if you want to test your relationship then navigating major Japanese train stations and finding the correct gate and train is a great way to go.

Luckily, we managed to find the right train and we were off! We hadn’t managed to get seated on the Mt Fuji viewing side of the train, but we managed to get a peak of Japan’s famous volcano from the area between train carriages and it definitely lived up to the hype, even from this far away!

Arriving at Kyoto, we made our way to our accommodation, an AirBNB in a traditional Japanese house, Steve’s first experience of sleeping on the floor on futons! We soon learned that traditional Japanese houses were not designed with people above 6 foot in mind, as Steve had a fun time dodging the low hanging appliances and door frames. Apart from that, it was a beautiful old building with a picturesque little garden in the middle.

Exploring Kyoto was looking to be a little bit easier than Tokyo and after getting the bus to see our first temple of the stay, we decided to hire bicycles from our accomodation to tour the city the next day. 

Our first temple, Kiyomizu-dera was beautifully set on a hillside overlooking the city, tight streets leading up to it filled with shops selling everything matcha and dessert related. Although hypocritical, as we are tourists ourselves, the experience, as with many in Kyoto was slightly dampened by the number of people visiting the sights, but they were still beautiful nonetheless.

That night, we visited the Nishiki Markets and again we had another ‘okay’ experience. We were beginning to realise that these big markets were often tourist traps and pretty similar to each other. Not terrible experiences, but we would probably not go back.

The next day, we secured our bikes and slightly unnerved about the lack of helmets, set off for our temple hopping mission. We soon learned that one of the bikes had no working gears, making hills a little more challenging, but we pushed on, swapping the bike between us as the ‘leg workout bike’.

In classic Lauren and Steve fashion, we of course had to find some good snacks to begin our journey and following an online tip, we found a great coffee shop called % Arabica and their Kyoto latte! Condensed milk in a coffee, sounds pretty good to me! 

We also followed another tip to a place that did creme brûlée sweet potato and an instagram worthy sweet potato ice cream. These were less tasty treats, but still worth the shot!

Next stop, Fushimi Inari Taisha, or the place with the millions of red gates! Again, heaps of tourists, but it was still very cool to walk through the hundreds of Torii gates. Steve even found a spot rumoured to fix aches in the knees and back by walking through some tree roots, so of course he gave it a crack.

The Imperial Palace was next on our agenda, a pretty cool spot if you have ever watched Shogun, as you can imagine scenes like in the TV show happening in the ancient buildings in front of us. 

We hopped back on our bikes heading for our final stop of the day, the Golden Palace, a stunning building plated in gold. We were lucky as the sun chose to come out just at the right time lighting up the building perfectly.

We had burned a lot of calories today, so decided to treat ourselves for dinner, heading into town for a Katsu restaurant where we had awesome service and a bunch of dishes all crumbed and deep fried. Sounds a bit too much, but the Japanese seemed to have mastered this technique without it feeling too overwhelming and fatty. Of course we found a suitable dessert afterwards.

After a chilly morning run the next day we found a little bakery run almost solely by the looks of it by a little old man. By the taste and look of the pastries, it was no wonder that he sells out of goods before midday most days!

Sufficiently carbed up, it was off for a Matcha tea ceremony, a must do while in Kyoto. We learned that the man taking us through the ceremony had trained for 10 years to become qualified to take ceremonies. Pretty intense dedication. Neither of us are massive herbal tea people, so it didn’t exactly wow us, but it was still a cool experience. Not sure how Steve felt about having to stay cross legged for almost an hour though…

We were off on another internet tip for dinner, this time for a Japanese bbq mission and maybe some quality steak. After doing some quick ChatGPT sign translating, we eventually managed to find the right place and were tempted into having the A5 ‘mega’ Wagyu steak. Great choice as this went down as probably the best steak we have ever had! 

This was a great way to finish Kyoto and it was now time for our last leg of the trip, Osaka.

First off, we thought we might as well confirm our market thoughts and attend Osaka’s famous Kuromon Markets and again came away wanting a little bit more. Exploring the area near the markets however, we came across some very cool alleyways holding some quiet restaurants and following internet advice, found ourselves an okonomiyaki place and had a great feed. 

Back in the craziness of the main streets, we found a 6 story arcade building and we learned that some of these games actually have mi goreng packets as the winnings. Little bit crazy to us, but people seemed to be into it! We also found a shop that sold fried bread with cream and fruit inside it and of course it would have been rude if we didn’t sample. 

The next day was hopefully going to be a special one as we were heading to the neighbouring city of Kobe to try Kobe beef, often said to be the best beef/steaks in the world. After visiting the oldest coffee shop in Japan and one of the most picturesque Starbucks you’ve ever seen, we made it to our booking at a steak restaurant.

I think we had been spoiled by our steak the other night, as although this was a fantastic steak, we don’t think it topped the wagyu we’d had in Kyoto.

We decided it would be rude to not give it another go, so we extended our time in Kobe and went to inspect the seaside area of town and learnt about the tragic earthquake that devastated the town in the 90s. The story of the destruction, the cleanup and the resilience the people of Kobe have is quite remarkable.

After a customary and elite bakery mission we went to another steakhouse, ironically called Steakland and sampled a little bit more Kobe beef. Again, a cracking melt in your mouth steak, but we still couldn’t top Kyoto. 

Sufficiently steaked out, we were back in Osaka and the next morning went for another chilly jog around the scenic Osaka Castle to burn off the great food from the past few days. Andddd then immediately found one of the best ramen places we had eaten at all trip, but life is about balance I guess.

It was our last full day in Japan and we had organised to go out for dinner with Steve’s friend Daisuke and his family. Steve hadn’t seen them in 6 years when they worked together in Australia and we were very much looking forward to it. We had a rough start to dinner as Daisuke had accidentally sent us to a restaurant with the same exact name 3km away! But, after finding out the right address, we were off! After a short and stressful taxi ride, where the driver spoke no English and our bank cards wouldn’t work, we eventually made it to the right place. It ended up being one of our favourite dinners in Japan and it was lovely seeing Daisuke and his family again. It was amazing how much his daughters had grown!

The next day (after some fluffy pancakes), it was time to head back to Tokyo for our flight that night and Steve decided to make it a little stressful and found himself a used camera semi near the airport. A stressful 30 minute walk both ways and a new camera for Steve later, we made it to the airport and were praying our bags would make it on the right flight.

Overall, our time in Japan was amazing and we will definitely be back. Japan really does do everything bigger, better and a little crazier (in a good way)!