If I were to live anywhere in Japan, out of the places I have been, it would be Kyoto. We arrived by train from Nara and took a cab to our hotel. On the way there we couldn’t help but be amazed at how clean and quaint the city was. The late afternoon sunlight glowing off the river and the buildings definitely had us seeing the city at its best but we found that we enjoyed it just as much in the early morning and late nights.

Our hotel was close to the river and close to Teramachi Dori, a covered pedestrian only street that had sections for street food, clothing, games and restaurants/cafes. We stopped for some a snack and decided to go to a small restaurant serving sushi. We thought we would be only having a small bite but instead, this is what we ended up with – a huge stack of empty plates that were once full of sushi.

 

It’s easy to spend an entire day exploring this area, getting lost in all the little shops, keeping your belly full with all the delicious bite size street food and relaxing in one of the many open seating areas.

There is even a shrine hiding amidst all the shops where you can stop to light some incense and admire the architecture of the little temple.

If you do happen to wander down the street food lane of the area be sure to try squid with quail egg, it was absolutely delicious.

We decided to rent bikes one day to explore the city and could not have been happier with the outcome. It was so easy to map out a route and make our way to a couple different temples within a ten kilometre radius of our hotel.

One of the more popular shrines is the Fushimi Inari but unless you are there really early in the morning, you’ll just find that it’s way too crowded to even enjoy.

We enjoyed the calm walk around another shrine called Nanjen-ji that wasn’t too far away from Fushimi Inari and was just as beautiful.

We spent some time before dinner sitting on the grass by the river and occasionally wandering into the shallow water to cool off.

Some other areas worth noting are the Golden temple and the Bamboo forest, totally worth the trip to see and fairly easy to take public transportation to and from both places.

If you want to watch some of our favourite moments from Japan, watch the video below! You can also follow our journey by following us on Instagram @TheyWentThere and liking us on Facebook.