Kyoto Day 2, Japan - Golden Pavilion & Fushimi Inari Shrine

I realised I haven't posted about my Japan trip in quite some time so it's time for a new one. I'm very slowly going through all the photos and I'm now a little over half way through the trip. Phew. I always tell myself to not write as much for each post but somehow it always ends up being very long. There's just too many things I want to share with all of you! This post follows on from Kyoto part 1 where I talked about Kiyomizudera and the light up festival.

Brunch & first night dinner

It is now the second day Yuye and I were in Kyoto and day 7 of our trip. As always, we woke up quite late and only had enough time for brunch. There were many restaurants mind you but Yuye liked what we ate on the first night here (the night we arrived it was already 11pm and this place was one of few still open) so much that we decided to go eat there again. It was a restaurants called Tenka Ippin (天下一品) which is a famous ramen chain across Japan. There are many outlets that can be found on their website, although it's in Japanese. The one we went to was the Minamiza Zen Shop (南座前店) right around the corner from where we stayed.

It's another place that uses an automatic ticket vending machine as the ordering system and you simply pass the tickets to the waiters as you enter the shop. It wasn't the most western friendly, however there are a few photos of the most popular dishes.

On the first night I just ordered the Chashu Ramen (920 Yen) which is the 2nd one down on the left. Not the cheapest out there but then Kyoto's mostly more expensive than Osaka and a lot of other cities in Japan anyway. It was a very delicious ramen. The broth was thick and full of porky goodness and hit all the right spots. I was a happy person.

Yuye ordered the same as me except in a set with an extra mini rice topped with dried salmon flakes for only 30Yen more. Why didn't I get this as well? The rice was also quite nice although not as spectacular as the ramen itself.

As a side we ordered a set of 6 gyoza for 300Yen. Don't be fooled by the slightly charred surface, it was actually quite tasty and well seasoned. The gyoza were put upside-down to prevent the crispy bottoms from getting damp in the juice and heat.

Dinner didn't end there. We also ordered two boiled eggs for 50Yen each. The yolks weren't as runny as I'd have liked but were still very nice. At least it wasn't overcooked. I dislike hardboiled eggs with powdery yolks. We just put the eggs in our ramen soup which soaked up all the flavours. So delicious!

For brunch on the second day in Kyoto, I ordered another ramen, this time it was the Assari Ramen for 730Yen which consisted of two pieces of chashu and a clear soy broth compared to the usual tonkotsu (pork bone) broth which is more milky in colour. This one was a bit oily. You can see floaty white bits on the top which, don't be alarmed, are pork fat and lots and lots of garlic. Gosh that was a lot of garlic, but it was so tasty! I love garlic.

Yuye ordered the usual chashu ramen with the mini rice set. This time the rice came with whitebait as a topping. I liked the salmon rice better but this one was also quite nice. Definitely worth the 950Yen that's for sure. Oh and of course we ordered eggs again, how can one not eat eggs with their ramen?

Tenka Ippin - Minamiza Zen Shop (天下一品南座前店)
For more shops visit website




Kinkakuji - the Golden Pavilion (金閣寺)

After brunch, we proceeded to Kinkakuji, probably the most well known and photogenic temple of all the ones in Kyoto. This wasn't as fabulous for me since I've been once before and I can tell you, there's nothing at this temple apart from taking photos of the main floating pavilion which is said to be covered in a layer of gold. The pavilion has been heavily damaged on several occasions in the past, the most recent time was in 1950 when a monk set it on fire. The current pavilion was rebuilt in 1955. There is also a similarly named temple called Ginkakuji - The Silver Pavilion not too far away, however this temple is not covered in silver.

We took bus number 15 (I think) because it was right outside where we stayed and it conveniently passes right outside Nijo Castle, a former residence of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Edo Period, although we didn't have time to stop by. The trip did take a long time, roughly 40-50 minutes so take a bus if you have enough time on your hands. Each bus ride costs about 200-240Yen, so if you're travelling multiple times in a day, it's worth buying the daily ticket which costs 500Yen. Bus tickets can be purchased on the bus or at many hotel receptions. Bus is probably the most convenient form of transport in Kyoto (or walking) as it runs throughout the city, however if you're short on time, it's probably better to take a train and then taxi. For more bus information, please visit Kyoto City Bus Guide and this pdf version of the map.

A few other photos I took while there:

Fushimi Inari Shrine (伏見稲荷大社)

As it was still cold in Japan, the sun set reasonably early. We were running short of time to visit one of my favourite places in Kyoto - Fushimi Inari Shrine. We caught bus 101 straight to JR Kyoto Station, then took the JR Nara Line to JR Inari Station where the shrine is located. It's only 2 stations away from Kyoto Station and might be a good stop over if you're heading to Nara from Kyoto or vice versa.

Fushimi Inari Shrine is the dedicated to Inari, which is the Shinto god of rice. It is protected by foxes (kitsune) throughout the grounds as foxes are thought of as messengers of Inari. You can purchase miniature gates and fox statues at the stores just outside the grounds of the shrine.

The main attraction for this shrine is its thousands of torii gates which cover many paths leading up Mount Inari. One of the most photogenic shrines in Kyoto in my opinion. Each torii gate has been separately donated by someone and thus there are names and donation dates carved into each one on the back. According to www.japan-guide.com, the donation amounts range from 400,000Yen for a small gate to over 1millionYen for a large one. That's a lot of donated money since there are countless torii gates! It just comes to show how dedicated people are in Japan to religion.

Of course, even smaller torii gates are available for those of us who wish to donate but are limited by budget. These are all over the place really, too many to even take photos of.

Miyajima, Japan - Day 5 Part 1

This is now day 5 of my trip with Yuye to Japan in March 2011. Our trip started just a day after the great earthquake hit.  Visit my earlier posts to find out what you missed!

Nara - Day 1
Osaka - Day 2
Nara - Day 3 - Shunie (Fire & Water Festival)
Osaka - Day 4 (Part 1) - Okonomiyaki & Osaka Castle
Osaka - Day 4 (Part 2) - sushi trains

If all had gone according to my itinerary (which I planned 5 months in advance and took me about that long to complete) we would have woken up at 7am, eaten breakfast properly and headed to Hiroshima, walked around the Peace Park and then traveled to Miyajima. I'm half glad that we didn't do what I had planned because it meant we had extra time to sleep but of course at the same time, we had to rush to make it to our destination. In fact, we ended up going to Hiroshima after Miyajima as a stopover to Kyoto.

The snacks

A strawberry yoghurt bread bought the previous evening from a convenience store had to suffice as brunch as we rushed to make our JR Shinkansen. Along with green tea flavoured mousse and sakura flavoured crackers. The strawberry bread apparently had strawberry jelly in the filling but I didn't notice anything of the sort, maybe I was in too much of a hurry.

We were only allowed on the medium to slow trains (Hikari, Kodama or Sakura were allowed, but not the Nozomi) which arrived around once an hour or so due to the JR Pass limitations. However getting seats were always a breeze because Japan is such a helpful country. All we had to do was speak to someone in the JR ticketbox usually located next to the gates where you enter and tell them our destination, they will calculate the best route and times and get us reserved seating if it's available. As getting tickets was so easy, plenty of time was left over to wander around the stores to find ourselves something nice to munch on during our 2 hour trip.

As we walked around, I heard a faint sound of what seemed like a bell chime. To my utter satisfaction, I had found myself the most wonderful Japanese cheesecake shop - Rikuro Ojisan (りくろーおじさん)! They ring a bell when freshly baked cake comes out of the oven and each cake is packed into a ready box to be taken away and enjoyed by all the eager patrons lining up outside. We were very lucky that this store was inside JR Shin-Osaka Station because the main store in Osaka's busy Namba walk had a constant line of around 20-30 people or more, every single time we walk past. When I see the line, I just snicker because we got it for under a minute with no wait! Can you believe the cake (which is fairly big) only cost 588Yen? It is unbelievable. I'm just kicking myself because Melbourne doesn't have anything as good or as cheap as this.

The cake was so light and airy that it wobbled like Flubber from the blockbuster flick (1997) as soon as the shop assistant opened the cake mold. I wish I wasn't so frozen at the amazement that maybe I could have gotten out my camera in time for a video of the action. But no. I was amazed alright, and hungry! Yuye didn't have to be told to buy it. He went straight for the counter and took a steaming hot cake away while I beamed from ear to ear.

It is best eaten freshly out of the oven while it was still hot and airy, but as we found out later on in the evening, eating it chilled with a cup of hot green tea was yet another experience to be had!

Our next stop was to get actual lunch and there was nothing better than two boxes of ekiben (train bentos), a must try if you're taking the shinkansen. This was my first experience with ekiben and my impressions of it were so hyped up that frankly I was a little disappointed. It may have looked beautiful, everything you'd expect from an authentic bento box in Japan, but eating cooked and fried things cold just wasn't our thing.

Yuye's bento was called "Mizuho to Sakura - みずほとさくら" which I think cost 1000Yen. The food I must say, looked absolutely stunning. The Japanese people are very good with their colour coordination which is clearly displayed here.

My bento cost 930Yen (I may have gotten the bento prices the other way around). It didn't look as colourful or pretty as Yuye's but I thought it tasted better. Perhaps it was the sukiyaki in the middle and the grilled salmon which gave it a richer flavour (compared to Yuye's katsu and chicken).

If you didn't manage to grab a bite before boarding, you can also purchase snacks and bentos from the trolley lady (I couldn't think of a better name I'm sorry!) who walks around every time the train reaches a large station.

The Transport

Miyajima is a small island off the coast of Hiroshima and is considered one of the top three best views in Japan. It is a very famous and popular tourist destination, especially during the autumn months due to the large amount of autumn leaves that cover most of the island. It is also famous for the floating torii gate which is the entrance to Itsukushima Shrine.

Nara (Day 3) - Shunie (Fire & Water Festival) & temples

It's always hard to wake up in the morning for me. Even though I spent months planning for this trip, setting myself 8am starts, doing a different activity every hour and even planning where to eat, nothing really turned out the way I wanted them to. Oh, I know what went wrong. I didn't plan for the awesome TV programs late at night! Staying up with Yuye nearly every night to watch the hilarious celebrity talk shows and mouth-watering travel/food shows really kept us from eating breakfast. That is why on the most part you won't be able to read about our breakfast adventures (apart from the ones in ryokans where we HAD to wake up since we paid for them already). One good thing came out of this though, Yuye can finally identify some members of SMAP since they were on TV every second night and even during ad breaks (they were ambassadors for the Japan earthquake appeals). I reckon the cleaning ladies really hated us because on a few occasions we had calls from reception telling us to basically either call off cleaning for the day or get out of the room.

Brunch and snacks

On day 3 of our trip (14 March) we woke up just in time for brunch in Namba Walk before paying Nara a second visit. Namba Walk links the three different Namba train stations into one long walkway (JR Namba Station, Kintetsu Namba Station and Nankai Namba Station all owned by different companies). This walkway houses many fashion and food stores which makes the long walk a bit more interesting. It didn't help much when JR Namba Station was the furthest away from our hotel though.

The place we chose to have brunch was called Sarashina Hirotaya (さらしな廣田屋) close to the entrance of Kintetsu Namba Station. Really we could have eaten anywhere. The food moulds that lined each and every restaurant window is enough to make a hungry me want to taste every one of those stores. Seriously. The moulds looked exactly the same as the real thing! I was so tempted to bring some back with me just to fool my friends. In the end the mould with a set of eel rice and soba won me over. These sets were reasonably good value. For less than $10 AUD, I got a smallish rice with eel on top and a huge bowl of soba with a tempura prawn. I wasn't able to finish mine so Yuye cleaned my bowls for me.

Yuye got a set of zaru soba (cold soba dipped in soy sauce) with tempura, also for less than $10. I personally liked his more but that's just because I didn't get to eat very much of it (Yuye was stingy!). I can eat that soba all day. :)

After brunch, we travelled straight to Nara. On the way to Nara Park, we passed a dango store called Douya (堂屋）and decided to snack on some freshly made dango. I must admit, dango's not my favourite snack since often it lacks flavour and it's really sticky (made of sticky rice) but a lot of people like it, guess it's personal preference.

Just before we got to the festival location, we got hungry again (not surprising right?) and got a leaf wrapped sushi along the path up to the temple. It was actually quite delicious, although the salmon didn't taste fresh. It was most likely preserved of some sort as it wasn't kept in a refrigerated area.

Nara's Deer

Most of our time in Nara was spent at Nara Park visiting the various shrines and temples, patting and feeding deer (and having our clothes chewed by them) and of course, attending the fire and water festival. The deer is literally everywhere! Be very careful if you plan on feeding them with deer senbei (rice crackers) because they will chase and headbutt you down and then chew every bit of your clothes until they get all the cracker crumbs off you. Each lot of senbei costs 150Yen and (yes we tasted it…) it really tasted like nothing, well, except plain rice crackers I suppose. Yuye and I were both overwhelmed by our popularity that running away was our only option of survival. Remember if you buy one, try not to open the package in front of the deer, the crackers will disappear in seconds.