Nishiki market
We started the day (late morning) with the visit of Nishiki market located in dowtown Kyoto, under a long arcade. While it used to be a traditional food market, this is now more a place for tourists than locals. However, I would still recommend to come and test a few appetizers - very often seafood-based during your visit.
Feeling these appetizers would not be enough, we stopped for lunch at a busy gyoza-place right at the end of the arcade on the corner of the opposite street. There are plenty of those in the area and all serve you a big portion of gyoza, several types of package are generally available.
After the lunch, we grabbed a bus to head off Northwest Kyoto towards Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavillion.
*Tips - transportation in Kyoto*
Buses are probably the easiest way to move around Kyoto. They are very easy to use and very frequent for most of them. You basically need to get in the bus through the back door and you pay when you go out through the front door (only). There is a flat fare per trip ay 230 Yens (for adults). They expect you to pay with the exact change (that you place directly into the machine next to the driver). If you do not have the exact change, you need to go in the front during a stop/red traffic light to make some changes at the automatic machine (next to the driver). The machine gives change for 100/500 Yens coins and 1,000 Yens notes. Therefore, when people pay, they are all always very quick! (Japanese are very pragmatic)
Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavillion) - 400 Yens
Based on all we heard, we knew that the site would be packed as this is one of the most famous sites to visit in Japan. Luckily, it was not as packed as expected due to the bad weather I suppose. The temple itself - located in the middle of a pond - is very pretty and the main hall is covered in brilliant and shining gold leaf. The rest of the site is more common.
After the visit, instead of taking another bus, we decided to walk for a good 20 minutes to visit another top sight called Ryoan-ji.
Ryoan-ji (Rock garden) - 500 Yen
Within a really nice garden (including a pond), you can visit Ryoan-ji (rock garden). This is basically a sand garden with 15 carefully placed rocks. I have to say it was a bit of a disappointment. I would have probably easily skipped this one. I found the free garden around the rock garden much nicer and refreshing to be fair and quite a nice one to see if you are around anyways.
Then, we decided to pursue our walk further West to Arashiyama forest. This time, it was a good 1h15 walk. However we could not find any good bus option so we decided to walk instead following Google Map. Luckily we got some good distraction for the first half of our walk, with the sight of the massive entrance gate of Ninna-ji temple and then the walk across some rather nice residential typical Japanese areas. The last part of the walk - following the main road to Arashiyama - was a bit less fun but we made it quickly as it was starting to rain towards the end!
Arashiyama bamboo grove - Free
Our arrival to Arashiyama forest was under the rain with all the tourists trying to find a way to leave the site. As a result, we ended up going through Arashiyama Bamboo forest on our own! Great for the pictures! Again on this one we had been told that we could skip it, as it was quite far away, very tiny and always very packed. I understand why people may say that, but this was still nice, especially without all the tourists! Another way to go to Arashiyama that I was advised to do is through the boat (Hozugawa). The weather was not nice enough for us to do that but I would consider if visiting with good weather.
After having done a few pictures in the famous Bamboo grove, we did a small tour in the forest around along the river mainly, watched the sunset and eventually took a bus to go back to Kyoto downtown.
That evening, we went for one of the Ponto-cho street restaurant (narrow alleyway with restaurants overlooking the river). We picked a little bit randomly to be fair - there are so many restaurants in the street, the choice is hard! - but we knew we wanted to try new typical dished. My boyfriend went for sukiyaki and I went for shabu-shabu. Both are hotpot dishes. Sukiyaki is thin slices of beef plus vegetable/tofu that you place in a broth of soy sauce/sugar/sake and you dip into raw egg. Shabu-shabu is slices of pork or beef as well as vegetables/tofu which are swished around in boiling broth and that you dip in a sesame sauce. Both were very good. We did not go for the most expensive dishes but some of those - especially if you pick nice beef - can be quite pricy. However it was quite fun, we were sharing this massive table in the first floor with other people.
After dinner, we went to 'Hello Dolly' jazz bar, also in Ponto-Cho alley. There was no live jazz concert that night, but we still enjoyed a nice cocktail with some jazz music in the background. The bar is relatively small, quite cozy but is a smoking bar so you may less enjoy the smoke. Still a nice one to enjoy for a couple of cocktails.
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