Kyoto is regularly chosen as one of the best cities to cycle in Asia – its flat, roads are well maintained, and there are many cycling routes available, so we decided to rent bikes for the day. Usually, we prefer the motorbikes, because we do bigger distances, but Fushimi Inari is a 20-minute bike ride away from our hostel. Bikes come equipped with locks and baskets and bike parks are everywhere, either free or payable. But, expect that if you are tall (180 cm and up), the bikes here will maybe be too small for you.
Once you arrive at Fushimi Inari, you instantly notice the crowds. Photos which you see online are either carefully timed, or people come here really early in the morning or really late at night. During the day, the crowds are huge. But, the higher you climb, the fewer people insist on walking, especially in 35°C heat. And while the first group of orange torii feels claustrophobic, it gets much better when you walk further up. We walked and sweated through the torii, towards the top of Mt. Inari.
Don’t be disappointed – there are no views at the top of the mountain (there is a view of Kyoto in the middle of the way) and the only thing for you to do is to walk down through another series of beautiful torii and through the green and humid forest. Heavy rain damage was still visible in some places.
I managed to navigate us back to the hostel (challenge accepted) and in the middle of our cycling plan making, our friends Mark and Lučka from Slovenia walk in with their huge backpacks. They arrived from Tokyo and we somehow managed to book the same hostel for the next few days. 🙂 So we spent the day doing a Slovenian cycling tour around Kyoto. We saw the To-Ji temple, the Nijo Castle and the Kyoto Imperial Palace- student style. Meaning, we took a picture from the outside, because there was an admission, and we had an awesome time doing it.
We even managed to dip our feet into the Kamo river, which was still a bit higher than usual but pleasantly cold for our tired feet. Guys started climbing on top of turtle stepping stones, so I had to join them, of course. Žiga had an awesome idea to do a pic Titanic style, and that’s the story of how I lost my sunglasses. 😀 Otherwise, the stepping stones are lovely and the place is mega relaxing and worth the visit. If you find my sunglasses, I’ll be very happy. 🙂 But, on a positive note – I didn’t fall into the river. See mum, I am a responsible adult.
We then followed the Philosopher’s Path through lovely (and expensive by the looks of it) Higashiyama district, which is lined with hundreds of cherry trees, for the ones traveling here during sakura period. We decided to open a ryokan here sometime in the future. The path ends at Nanzenin Temple, which is near the Kyoto Zoo, the Museum District, and the mega huge Heian Shrine Torii Gate, which we discovered by accident.
At this point, we remembered that we haven’t eaten most of the day and decided to visit Pontocho for dinner. It is a narrow alley full of restaurants and bars, but we somehow managed to navigate it with bikes. Soon we realized that prices here are “atmospheric” and mostly out of our price range and I was being my usual hungry me, so 7/11 was our next destination. Rice balls here we come.
But we got lucky and found the loveliest izakaya by chance. Basically, it was the only place where we found free parking for our bikes. 🙂 And we were not sorry. Izakaya is a casual Japanese place for after-work drinking and eating, in our case with tatami mats and low tables. Food comes to the table “tapas style”, so people can share and try everything. I finally crossed Tamago Kake Gohan or rice mixed with raw egg off my food bucket list and it is amazing.
The evening ended with the essential part of Japanese culture – sake tastings, plum wines and sours (which is a juice with vodka here). The end of our stay in Kyoto is quickly approaching and soon we’ll be moving to Osaka. 😮