Kyoto, Japan

On Saturday 24th December we travelled the 4 and a half hours to Kyoto, arriving mid afternoon. I had booked us into an Airbnb for 4 nights that was a short walk from the train station. 

After settling into our accommodation, that afternoon we went for a walk to Maruyama Park with its numerous temples and shrines.

There were lots of stalls in the area selling street food and we took a liking to the takoyaki (octopus dumplings).

We then went for a walk around the nearby Gion area, keeping an eye out for geisha amongst the atmospheric small streets and alleyways as it is meant to be the best place in Japan to spot them.

I don't know who the woman below is, but there was a crowd of people taking photos of her at the entrance to an alleyway, so I joined the masses...

Christmas Day started with donuts and fresh orange juice for brunch which Will kindly popped out and got. We had spotted the donut place the previous day. The creme brulee one back right was unbelievably good!

The rest of our Christmas day was pretty chilled (so chilled that I can't really remember what we did!). We did have Christmas dinner at a little local restaurant where Will celebrated with a humongous beer!

On boxing day we visited another of Kyoto's numerous shrines. This time it was the Fushimi Inara-taisha Shrine, made up of over 5000 red torii gates.

If, for an earlier post I reckoned I had over 500 photos of snow monkeys, I think I ended up with a similar number of photos of red gates! It was such a photogenic place.

Christmas Pikachu even put in an appearance!

It was crazy busy near the entrance of the shrine, but as we wound our way a couple of kilometres up the hill, the crowds thinned out. We were rewarded for our effort with lovely views over Kyoto.

Boxing day dinner was some amazing smoked salmon with salad back at our little apartment.

The next day we caught a train out to Arashiyama and started at the Tenryu-ji Temple with its lovely grounds.

Next up was the Arashiyama bamboo grove which was very cool.

Lunch was a very tasty affair in another cute little traditional restaurant.

Suitably refreshed, we then headed off to see our other major sight for the day, the famed Kinkaku-ji or 'Golden Pavilion' which is one of Japan's most photographed buildings. Even on a grey overcast drizzly day it was a stunning sight.

So, that concluded our time in Kyoto. The next morning we were back on a train for the short trip to Osaka. I'll finish with our Kyoto selfie collection from some of the major sights!