The following word vomit is meant to be a collection of thoughts and recollections throughout Lea and I’s journey to Japan. I am prone to forgetting things and I thought it would be fun for anyone reading to see what we did and for myself to have a reminder of some of the finer details that I’m likely to forget. I’ll be writing this in a somewhat blog-y manner, because I intend on making this page public so I’ll try to recap the trip while making it a fun read. Please enjoy the 2 weeks we spent in Japan!

After flying for 16 or so hours we finally landed in Tokyo, having the intention of traveling straight to Kyoto to kick off our journey. But before we could begin our journey, we had to make a quick pit stop to an airport bathroom. I was less than enthused about having to use a public restroom, let alone an airport bathro—oh my god it’s so clean, so private, so majestic. Seriously, the first impression of Japan I had was an airport bathroom stall. The stall door closed with no cracks, no ability for a peeping tom to watch me do my business. This was going to be a great trip.

Kyoto

We rode the Shinkansen to Kyoto, Japan’s fastest (bullet) train. I knew I was going to love it and it only made me want more trains in the U.S. more. We had a bit of a navigational hiccup when we first arrived, like what most people talk about, but after sitting for a moment to digest the transit system and how it worked, we got on pretty well with it. Hardly any trouble after the first day of being there. We arrived at Kyoto Station in…Kyoto. It was way busier than what I would have expected based on walking around the city, which was a lot less chaotic and busy. We spent the majority of time in Kyoto exploring Temples and Shrines along with Nijo-Jo Castle, which ended up being my favorite spot in Kyoto.

Lea was excited about Kyoto Station and to explore it and we did to a degree. There were a lot of shops within the station and restaurants. The unfortunate part of the station is that it’s obviously underground, so navigating to places via Google Maps was pretty difficult. It was easy to get lost because of all the entrances, exits, and shops. I think both of us agreed that while Kyoto Station was cool, it’s not somewhere we’d necessarily want to hang out so we really only passed through it.

We picked up a SkyHop bus pass, which allowed us to somewhat easily traverse between the different temples, shrines, and other tourist areas. The only downside of the bus system was that it was inadequately spaced out, which made timing visits to destinations difficult.

My favorite tourist destination as part of the SkyHop adventures was Nijo-jo Castle. It had a beautiful landscape and stunning views at its highest point. It was also in the middle of the city so it was cool to see that breakup in cityscape. We expected to see mostly fully bloomed cherry blossoms but we were about a week too early. There were some bloomed plant life, but nowhere near most of it.

Besides the shrines and temples we also visited Katsura Imperial Villa, which had a stunning landscape complete with 4 teahouses, decorated with plant life for each season, a giant pond, and plenty of trees. It was absolutely freezing and it was a guided tour so we were out there for about an hour and a half. I’d love to go back during the fall or summer to see the landscape fully bloomed - it was my favorite landscape of Kyoto.

We skipped Arashiyama Bamboo Forest because we were feeling tired after a few days of travel and sightseeing so we decided to go to the Kyoto City Zoo and the Rail Museum - the former being incredibly depressing. We learned after the fact that Japan does not typically have great conditions for animals in captivity. It was and will likely be the most depressing zoo I have ever visited. We left fairly quick and headed over to the Rail Museum which was a much better visit. There were a ton of retired trains from throughout Japans history, so it was awesome to see some of those and read about them.

Overall, I enjoyed Kyoto the most. I felt like we were getting an older look at Japan with all the shrines and temples we got to see. There were also a lot of mom & pop shops and stalls, so it made the city feel small and closer-knit. It felt the most foreign of any place I’ve traveled to, which I can’t say the same for Osaka or Tokyo. Our timing to the city was a bit unfortunate though, as we were about a week early for the cherry blossom bloomings. We did get to see some of them, but definitely missed out. I’d be happy to visit Kyoto again during a warmer time.

• Hoganji Gate
  • First temple we went to
  • Very large and mostly surrounded by gravel pathways, hardly any decorative landscaping
  • We used a skyhop service to get on an off the bus at various stations

• Nijo-Jo Castle
  • This Castle was my favorite site to see, it was the biggest with the best landscaping features.
  • It had massive walls surrounding it with a moat.
  • It had a large pond behind it, and some rose trees/bushes
  • This is where we had saw our first cherry blossom when we got there

• Kyoto National Garden

  • Lots of cherry blossoms and people
  • One fully bloomed cherry blossom that influencers were using for their videos
  • Lea took my favorite picture of me here
  • Very large park area

  

• Go-o Shrine

  • Small Shrine near the Katsura Imperial Villa
  • Where Lea first said you must walk on the side of the paths

• Rozan-ji Shrine

  • Just a cutsie shrine

• Kyoto Imperial Palace

  • Very large area with massive gravel paths
  • Not a lot of interesting landscaping
  • The Emperor lived once lived here

  

• Katsura Imperial Villa

  • Huge property with beautiful landscaping, featuring a giant pond
  • 4 different tea houses for each season and would be used in the appropriate season
  • Built the house in a way that the moon light shines perfectly on it
  • It was blistering cold out that day, but the views of the property and tea houses were worth it
  • The pond they had was big enough to have a small canoe on it

  

• Golden Temple

  • The Golden Temple was cool to see, but a little over-hyped. This may be because not everything had bloomed yet, but the landscape was still pretty to see.
  • There wasn’t much at the temple aside from the temple itself, there were some small shops and vendors for food and souvenir.
  • This was one of the more touristy Temples we went to that was packed with people

  

• Nishiki Market

  • The entire population of the Earth was here and walking on the wrong sides
  • Lea got her engrave chopsticks, I couldn’t decide what kind I wanted because they didn’t have any colors I liked
  • Got a red bean paste mochi
  • Got a wagyu beef stick, it absolutely melted in my mouth