By LaPtiteLu

In May, my mum came to visit me in Shanghai. As we had visited a little bit of China during her first trip, I wanted to show her other Asian countries. I chose Japan. We spent 3 days in Kyoto and 2 days in Kinosaki.
I wanted to visit Kyoto for a long time: for its traditional characters, its temples and gastronomy food.
Our guesthouse, found on airbnb was in the neighborhood of Kokusikaikan. A lovely place, very quiet but well served by subway and with lot of  restaurants around.

The Kokusikaikan neighborhood so peaceful and lovely, surrounded by mountains.

Our guesthouse

Surprise dinner. We just randomly pointed to the menu items since everything was in Japanese and no one spoke English.

For our first day, we decided to go to Nishiki Market, a fabulous place! You can find everything there: Japanese snacks, souvenirs for tourists, green tea, sake but especially food. You can taste everything and try all these new flavours. We enjoyed a lot!

I took forever to choose 3 adorable little balls dolls from all these little ones…

We tasted everything! Pepper, anchovies, radishes… everything was so familiar and yet so different!

After the feast of Nishiki market, we decided to visit the Daigo-ji temple. We saw a lovely picture of it on internet. It was in a very big park.

At the end of the park, we found the little red temple that charmed us. It is a red colour highlight among the green trees. The view was absolutely gorgeous. Huge carp swim lazily in the water. We remained beside the lake  contemplating the beautiful scene eating almonds purchased in the market.

Behind the temple and everywhere in the park, there are small shaded corners. The ground is covered with moss and the sound of water makes us want to stay there as long as possible.

After this delicious moment, we had a break in a yakitori restaurant.
Barbecue leeks and beers are perfects!

The day after we went to the Bamboo Forest Arashiyama. A beautiful place. There was magic in the air …

There were cute garden and beautiful places that we can visit in the Bamboo forest.

We walked so much so we got exhausted. Udon noodle and tempura are a perfect snack!

We decided to leave Arashiyama with the “romantic mountain train” that I suspected of being a boring tourist attraction. But my mother insisted, so we tried. No regrets, we discovered magnificent landscapes! Green river runs through mountains covered with pine trees. We would like to stop and took some time to admire all these beauties but the small mountain train goes very fast…

After the Bamboo forest, we decided to visit Gion, a traditional neighborhood located in the heart of Kyoto. They say you can see geishas. We didn’t have the luck but the architecture of the houses are very nice. These are essentially tea houses.

When we came to Japan, my mother had a very specific idea in mind: try Kobe beef. It is at Gion that we found a restaurant specialized in Kobe meat. Mom was happy. The meat was very tender and delicious. I took the scallop and they were amazing.

On the third day, we decided to leave to go to Kinosaki, a small town 2 hours by train from Kyoto and famous for its hot springs. I booked a luxury ryokan there (traditional Japanese hotel). Airbnb, it’s great for cheap budget but after Kyoto we wanted to treat ourselves nicely.
See you in another article to tell you about this.