Day 4: West/Central Kyoto
Bright and early again! Today was Arashiyama Bamboo Forest day, and although I planned the rest of the day to be used for resting, we ended up doing a lot more than expected.
Arashiyama Bamboo Forest
The Bamboo Forest is notoriously one of the most crowded tourist spots in Kyoto; there were many videos circulating around the web where the floor of the pathway was simply not visible due to the sheer number of bodies walking through. We decided to get there early, and after taking a city bus to a nearby station (about 30 minutes) we made the walk to the forest path at around 7:45am. The walk itself was pleasant due to the aesthetic nature of the surrounding neighborhoods:
Just before entering the main forest area we encountered this awesome train track crossing that made for great photos:
We were in the Bamboo Forest at around 8:00am, and we found it getting pretty crowded relative to the days we were at other Kyoto attractions. I honestly believe that we didn’t come early enough; when we were at Kiyomizu-dera it was about 7:30am and there were no souls in sight.
The walk was briefer than I expected, but Mom was able to capture basically the luckiest photo a tourist could possibly get: the pathway without a single soul in sight:
The end of the forest itself was pretty anticlimactic, and since we were still energized we decided to keep exploring the area for the sake of it. We ended up walking north and found this beautiful area:
Saga Toriimoto Preserved Street
Continuing north, we accidentally stumbled across the Saga Toriimoto Preserved Street, a road that’s been well-kept since the Meiji era. The street was lined with traditional buildings and shops (and was also completely empty):
It was also here where we found one of the only 100-yen vending machines that we’d encounter for the rest of the trip (that low of a price is rare nowadays):
Although we spotted this really cute cafe with an exterior completely covered in shrubbery, we decided to opt out (we weren’t sure if it was open and we didn’t want to bother):
From here, we walked all the way back to the train station and went down to Kyoto Station to grab lunch, as we didn’t really explore around the downtown area and wanted to see what it was like.
Kyoto Station, Lunch
Kyoto Station was simply a labryinth of station platforms, shopping tunnels and restaurants. We searched on Google Maps for food, and we ended up being directed to the 11th floor of the station at the top of this huge escalator:
Here, we found a restaurant called Katsukura, a tonkatsu restaurant chain that was very hyped up on Google! We got there just in time to line up for their 11:00am opening and were immediately seated.
At Katsukura, you can grate your own sesame seeds and crush them in a mortar and pestle to make your own sauce! There were a plethora of combos to choose from, and (as always) we tried to spread out our order for the best variety: chawanmushi (savory steamed egg custard), pork cutlets, crab croquettes, a really long prawn, etc. We also greatly appreciated their complementary miso soup, shredded cabbage and rice refills. The miso soup was pretty foreign to me because I’ve always made it with packets only containing dried tofu and seaweed, but this one had vegetable chunks and was very dark in color:
Downtown Kyoto
After lunch, we decided it was now time to finally fix my SIM card after 4 days of leeching off my family’s poor hotspots (which was terrible, as I was the primary navigator). After talking to a help desk at the station, we were directed to a Yodobashi Camera right underneath the Kyoto Tower. The SIM ended up being around $50 and had a fixed cap at 4GB, which was way more than I needed for the rest of the trip. Although we didn’t take pictures here, we roamed around the downtown area for way too long, getting coffee and snacking at a Lawson.
For dinner, we decided that we’d eat a full meal from our local Life Supermarket, which was such an unforgettable experience; there’s many YouTube videos from big channels that like to show off the variety and quality of Japanese supermarket food, but it’s a completely different experience when you’re actually there. We were able to pick and choose to our heart’s content because it was all simply too affordable, and we ended up with multiple sushi platters, an instant noodle bowl, katsu sandwiches, coffee jelly, melon-pan, risotto, taiyaki ice cream, and much more:
We went to sleep early for the big day tomorrow!