Travellers: September 2018

Kyoto has been one of my favourite city to visit since the first time I stepped my feet there, and I was so excited to re-visit this city. Since I visited some of the top spot on my previous visit like Kiyomizu-Dera, Fushimi Inari Shrine, which I'm sure are also beautiful in autumn, I decided to pay a visit to different spots this time.

Kyoto on 20th November 2017 noon was cloudy and a bit freezing. As I remembered, it was below 10°C that day, and I was wearing three layers clothing inside - well I'm not really good with cold weather.

We stayed in a hostel located within 10 minutes walk from JR Kyoto Station. After dropping our luggage, we walked towards Kyoto Station and spotted this Katsugyu restaurant with a queue of people in front of it. Apparently this place is quite famous, so we decided to have our lunch there.

Katsu Set - JPY 1,598

It was a good lunch, not bad at all, but not as good as we expected since we were still awed with the deliciousness of Gyukatsu Motomura and comparing this one to it.

Before this trip, I did some research on places to visit in Autumn in Kyoto and Tofukuji appeared on the list. And so we head to this place after lunch.

Tofukuji is one of the most well-known zen temple in Kyoto. Quite many people were visiting this place on Monday afternoon. Let me show you some parts of this temple, and don't miss the Tsuntenkyo bridge like I did, which is actually the best autumn viewing spot there.

Taking picture with Kyoto's autumn foliage mission accomplished!

From Tofukuji, we were heading to Ninenzaka area with bus. Oh yeah, this is a good tip, do buy Kyoto bus pass, it is super worth it. It was only JPY 500 - FYI each bus trip cost JPY 230 in Kyoto. Why Ninenzaka? Actually because my friend wanted to visit the traditional Japan styled-Starbucks there.

The walk towards Ninenzaka was captivating. You could spot the beautiful Yasaka Shrine there. And if you love coffee, you could spot % Arabica shop on this lane, and yes people were queuing for their cup of coffee. But I skipped this one for the Arashiyama shop.

I remembered it was still 5 PM something but the sky got dark so early. We should've gotten here earlier to enjoy the afternoon charm of this captivating narrow lane with traditional wooden styled shops on the sides of the street.

You could find from traditional souvenir shops to Ghibli & Hello Kitty shops here which some Hello Kitty merchandise were only available exclusively here. I did not take so many beautiful pictures here since my main camera battery died just right after we reached this lane.

After considering on where should we had our dinner, we left this area and rode the 202 bus to a ramen restaurant called Fire Ramen Menbakaichidai. And talking about the weather, can you guess how much more freezing it would be later in the night? It was much colder, yet we had to wait outside the restaurant after taking our queue number. Yep, we were on the waiting list since the shop didn't have much seat and there were already people queueing before us.

I consider myself quite lucky since I could still enter the waiting 'camp' with heater in it. People who were coming after me had to wait outside, since it was only a small waiting booth. After maybe, almost an hour or less, we finally entered the shop.

There were only maybe 8-10 seats inside the shop, and they were dividing the guest into two batch. The other batch was already enjoying their ramen, and our batch was waiting for our turn.

If you could see the hanging things in the kitchen, guess what? They were selfie sticks. So here, we couldn't put anything on the table since it was dangerous, so the restaurant provide selfie sticks to place our phones in order to record this blazing experience which you could view on the video below. Something that didn't always happen when I'm having my ramen.

Well it was only a one second firing ramen experience, but it was still amazing. Now, how about the ramen itself?

Fire Ramen - JPY 1,250

The ramen was covered with green onions, that you might called it green onions with ramen not vice versa but I loved it! The after taste of the green onion was sweet. The broth was also clean and fresh. And the chasiu was also good.

The next day, we were planning to visit Arashiyama with bus. We got lost for riding the wrong bus, but thank God we managed to get down and wait for the right bus to Arashiyama.

We know that we had arrived in Arashiyama when we saw this Togetsukyo bridge.

It was cloudy that morning, but soon after the sky was getting clearer and we were reaching for our first destination.

And this was our first destination.

The % Arabica Shop!

There was a queue of course, but I heard from my friend who visited this place two days before my visit, the queue was super crazy. But on the day of my visit, the queue was tolerable, so I happily queued for my one cup of coffee.

Don't expect to have a cafe-experience here since there's only one table inside and you have to pay a certain amount to sit there.

I love this small and simple coffee shop theme, where people just visit this place to enjoy their coffee rather than just taking pictures of their coffee. Believe me, I've witnessed local food instagrammer ordering coffee just to take picture of it and left it, without drinking it at all.

Bonus: good looking barista!

Latte - JPY 500

After a while, I finally got to enjoy my cup of latte. It was all worth it, the wait and the view where I enjoyed my coffee.

From % Arabica, we headed to Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, passing by several temples with beautiful autumn foliage around.

And finally the bamboo grove. This is a place for you who enjoy zen moment, and on the other side I think this place might be boring fod the other some. Me? I think I'm in between the two sides. I still enjoyed the walk between the bamboo trees but not for so long.

Meanwhile taking beauty shots here was quite hard since it was pretty crowded with people.

And if you are walking the same direction with me, you might spot Nonomiya Shrine, which is small, but beautiful.

From Arashiyama, we went back using train to Kyoto Station and got ready for Tokyo!

See you on my next post. Anw, should I write a post regarding my JR Pass experience?

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JAPAN TRIP SERIES 2019
Furano-Biei Day Trip: Farm Tomita, Shikisai No Oka, Blue Pond
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Starbucks Reserve® Roastery Tokyo
Reasons to Stay Around Asakusa (or not)
My Third Japan Trip - The Intro

JAPAN TRIP SERIES 2017
Konnichiwa! I'm back!
JAPAN AUTUMN TRIP 2017: Preparation and Cost
JAPAN AUTUMN TRIP 2017: Back to Dotonbori
JAPAN AUTUMN TRIP 2017: Fall Foliage at Minoo Park and Quick Visit to Kuromon Market
JAPAN AUTUMN TRIP 2017: Autumn in Kyoto
JAPAN AUTUMN TRIP 2017: A Day In Takayama
JAPAN AUTUMN TRIP 2017: November Snow at Shirakawa-Go

JAPAN TRIP SERIES 2015

Hello JAPAN!

JAPAN TRIP: Preparation and Cost (Visa, Accommodation, Transportation, etc)

JAPAN TRIP: 20 Random Facts about Japan
JAPAN TRIP: DAY 1 Welcome to Osaka - Umeda!
JAPAN TRIP: DAY 2 Universal Studios Japan
JAPAN TRIP: DAY 3 Kaiyukan (Osaka Aquarium) & Osaka Castle
JAPAN TRIP: DAY 4 Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, Shibuya, Tokyo Tower, Shinjuku
JAPAN TRIP: DAY 5 Sensoji, Meiji Shrine, Yoyogi Park, Harajuku
JAPAN TRIP: DAY 6 Gotemba Premium Outlet
JAPAN TRIP: DAY 7 Tokyo Disneyland
JAPAN TRIP: DAY 8 Tokyo DisneySea
JAPAN TRIP: DAY 9 Fujio F. Fujio Museum & Yanaka Ginza
JAPAN TRIP: DAY 10 Kyoto - Kiyomizu Dera, Nishiki Market, Tsujiri Honten, Gion
JAPAN TRIP: DAY 11 Half Day Trip to Nara, Smile Burger - Kyoto
JAPAN TRIP: DAY 12 Fushimi Inari Taisha & Ichiran Ramen - Kyoto
JAPAN TRIP: DAY 13 & 14 Osaka Shopping Heaven - Shinsaibashi Suji & Dotonbori

Okay, I hope it's not too late to share about my autumn experience in Osaka. That day, my travel companions were going to Universal Studios, and since I already went there before, I looked for a place where I could enjoy some fall foliage in Osaka. When I googled about fall in Osaka, Minoo Park kept appearing on the result, so I did some research and went there.

From where I stay, it took around one and a half hour to reach Mino-o Station and extra 15-20 minutes walk to reach the park.

The walk to the park was pleasant, the weather was cool, the trees were surrounding me, and the sound of the stream were accompanying me.

Actually, I expected that fall would be totally yellow, orange, and red, but at the time, many of the trees were still green. But I could still witnessed the beautiful autumn foliage there. You could see the scenery I enjoyed through the pictures below.

And as it was my first autumn trip, a picture with reddish and yellowish trees is a must. I asked a stranger to take this picture.

Trying fried momiji (maple leaf) is a must when you visit Mino-o Park. So I bought a small bag of fried momiji.

Fried Momiji - JPY 200 / pack

Actually I could hardly feel the taste of the leaf itself since the flour coating was thick and a bit hard, but you could see the dried leaf inside when you bite it.

I still had half day to spend after my visit to Minoo Park. So then I headed to Kuromon Ichiba Market. It was quite near to Dotonbori. This market is only around 3 minutes walk from Nippombashi Station.

It was Sunday noon, some of the shops were closed, but many food stalls were open.

Here you could find many tempting food from fresh seafood to Kobe beef.

Or maybe you would like to try these fugu fish.

There were too many food I wanted to try, but since I was alone, I just tried a few. I need to go back to this place someday. These were the food I tried. And yes, everything were good!