Exploring Kyoto Japan __ Amazing Things To Do In Kyoto - Adventures of Lauren & Jason

The perfect blend of modern and traditional, this is Kyoto. Located on the main island of Honshu in west central Japan and once the country's capital, Kyoto is famous for its temples, traditional wooden houses, and stunning landscapes surrounding the city. Brimming with Japanese culture, especially in the Gion district which was our favorite area to explore, Kyoto cannot be missed on your Japan From stunning bamboo forests to never-ending torii gates, delicious udon noodles to conveyor belt sushi, Kyoto intertwines modern day and imperialist Japan in one city. With months of craving Japanese cuisine, we couldn't start our day without first searching for a hearty staple dish. Good morning from the beautiful city of Kyoto. We were actually here back in 2019. We did the big three, Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto and Kyoto was our favorite city which is why we had to come back four years later. Really excited to show you guys on video as we didn't film last time but I gotta say Kyoto is that perfect blend of modernized urban, greenery, and also the old district. And that is actually where we're heading to right now which is called the Gion district, the historical district and we love the way the architecture looks but first we're absolutely starving. It's actually about almost noon, we haven't had breakfast yet so let's go and grab some udon noodles. The udon place that we're heading to is called Menkyui Kinya and they only take cash and we don't have any cash with us so we just went over to the 7-Eleven which by the way is actually the best ATM for you to withdraw cash. Their fee is about 110 yen for every 10,000 that you take out. Definitely the best place for you to go and withdraw cash. Now that we have our money, let's go and grab some breakfast. One of the popular dishes to get here is actually one of their set menus. They have a variety of them. We decided to get the chicken and vegetable tempura along with our udon except Jason also got a soft-boiled egg and some rice with the tempura to go with. Now you can also spice it up or add some flavor. They have a ton of different varieties. They have vegan tempura sauce, vegan bonito sauce, they have different varieties of peppers as well and curry salt. We actually walked around for a little bit trying to look for coffees and we realized the best place to get your coffee is actually at these vending machines right over here. A ton of different coffees for just 100 yen. This one right here we got a big bottle of this like coffee latte for only 110 yen. Now one other thing I do like to point out though is that here in Japan you do not want to walk while you drink or eat and you'll notice there's not a lot of garbage cans but there is one right beside the vending machine. So what you generally want to do is you want to go ahead and get your drink, you want to finish it by the vending machine, toss it out and then go continue on your adventure. Our first attraction in Gion is the Yasaka Jinja Shrine. It's set beautifully in this large park and the orange-painted wood of all the structures contrast so well against the greenery. It's so large that you can also even get a little bit street food like some chocolate-covered bananas if you ever get hungry. See everyone here stopping to take pictures? And that's because right over there in a really rustic building is a Starbucks coffee. I think it's such a genius move from Starbucks to actually put it right here in the middle of Gion on this really beautiful walking street and it's so like rustic, has wooden features. Honestly, it makes me want to go in too. You can't visit Gion without checking out the Yasaka Pagoda and visiting the street that has the best vantage point of the pagoda. You can actually see it behind me. This is the spot that everybody loves to take photos of it. When we were here four years ago, we were actually here before sunrise and there was still a crowd of photographers getting ready to take photos just like us. We decided to get some matcha soft-serve ice cream right as it's pouring and a little bit poor tabbing but we're gonna enjoy it. I mean the matcha here in Japan is one of the best. We woke up at the bright hour of 4.15 in the morning to catch the earliest trains to get to Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. This is one of our favorite spots in Kyoto and after we got to the Arashiyama train station, it's still another 20-minute walk to get to the grove and as we're walking through here, we noticed how beautiful the clouds were lifting up before the mountains and we had to stop along the way. I know we're gonna get there kind of late but it was so worth it just taking the views. Jason's actually still behind me. He's not even in the line of sight because he's trying to get as much footage as possible at the dam with the mountains in the background. There was gonna be a big crowd of people here but it turns out that when we got here, there was nobody. It was just us taking photos for a good 15 minutes and there were just a couple of locals going on their daily walk. Yeah, we thought that 6 a.m was gonna be way too late just based on what we've seen online but no, it was amazing. This is just as magical as we remember it back in 2019. We absolutely love the way that the girls line up this path which is such a great spot for photos and you can definitely see some people arriving, a lot of the photographers and we're so glad we caught it mostly to ourselves. Right beside the bamboo grove, you have Kameyama Park. Now obviously, it's not gonna have the same kind of grandeur and the lines of the bamboo grove but it is so quiet, it is peaceful. You still have the beautiful greenery all around. This is a great spot for after you're done with your photos or sightseeing, head off to this park, go for a stroll and just enjoy the scenes. Yeah, waking up at 4 in the morning wasn't very easy so we had to come back to the hotel and take a nap but it lasted a lot longer than we expected so we're super hungry now. We're gonna be heading out to lunch and we're thinking either ramen or sushi. So for lunch, we made it over to Kura Sushi and this is one of those famous conveyor belt sushis. Obviously, the price is gonna be a little bit cheaper. I'm not too sure about the quality but entering this building, it looks really beautiful with the way it's designed so we're heading down these staircases and let's go grab some sushi. This is definitely one of the fanciest conveyor belt sushi places we've ever been to because generally, when you go to conveyor belt sushi places, they're usually of a lower tier because they're generally cheaper but here, super amazing. So you first sign yourself in, you pick how many people you have with you, they give you this ticket and they actually tell you exactly what table number you are. You just head over there and everything here is self-serve. There's sushi over here to my left. You have all your different condiments right here below me, utensils right here. You can order from this iPad. You can just go ahead and select what you want if you want it directly shipped right to you or you can just obviously pick sushi off the conveyor belt. I think we'll do a mixture of both. We're so excited, we can absolutely start. So generally, almost every single dish is 142 yen so it's really affordable and one thing we have noticed though is on the conveyor belt, there's not that many options. A lot of empty plates and I think the reason why is because everyone tends to order right from the iPad and because when you do order from the iPad, the chefs actually make it fresh as it comes to your table and the other cool addition is that you actually have unlimited matcha. So that's your hot water tap right over here. And there's actually matcha right here in the table so you can go ahead and stir it yourself. The cool thing about this conveyor belt sushi place is that you can actually play a game once you have five empty plates. You can just toss them right into the slot and then see if a prize falls down from this box right here. Let's see if we win something. They just don't want us to win, do they? It's our last morning here in Kyoto and for our final stop, we had to come to what is probably the most iconic spot here in the city which is the Fushimi Inari Gate. This is definitely one of our favorite spots when we came last time just because of the way that the orange gates really look and different structures. Absolutely beautiful. We came in pretty early at about 6 a.m but there's definitely some crowds already building. With 10,000 toy gates, you can bet that the path extends pretty far and wide. They actually lead all the way up to the top of Mount Inari and the higher up you go, the torii gates actually get bigger and further apart. We think that the best photo spots are actually closer to the entrance where the torii gates are closer into each other and actually a little bit shorter. While our visit to Kyoto has come to an end, it's time for us to journey to our next destination. Catch us in the next video as we explore rural Japan in the village of Shirakawa-go.