My Buns are Getting Cold

We had one full day in Kyoto today. Not enough time to do all the things we wanted to do. Plus, we technically aren’t even staying in Kyoto – we are somewhere up in the mountains.

We had breakfast at the ryokan and it was really great.

The hotel told us they had a shuttle bus that could take us to a site – and where did we want to go? Golden Temple? Bamboo forest? We had a mission this morning however – and it was to go to a small temple called Shonen Ji aka Neko Dera –

Welcome to SHONENJI-Temple Website

A shrine for dearly departed pets. The hotel said they could take us to the Golden Temple and then we can easily catch a bus from there. Sounds like a good plan.

We went for a bit of a wander after breakfast as the shuttle bus wasn’t until 10am. It’s a shame we don’t have more time here as there are some great looking hiking trails around this area.

At 10am we boarded the shuttle bus. It was more of a Tarago than a bus and there was only one other couple on board. When we got to the Golden Temple the driver asked if we were all going there we said – we weren’t and asked if he knew where the bus stop was. He looked at the map and as the temple wasn’t too far away he said he could take us! So very nice. We got a bit lost on the way and Steve ended up navigating from his phone. The driver enjoyed our poor Japanese and we eventually found the temple. Except we didn’t. We found the sign to the temple. It took about another 10 minutes of walking around until we eventually found it. It was a small temple in a residential area. There wasn’t a lot to see but we saw the “Tomodachi” memorial and also got some cat amulets. It was a nice place and we thought of Yuki while we we were there.

From here we had to get to Arashiyama as I had booked lunch at our most favourite restaurant ever – Mastugae. They are predominantly a tofu restaurant and they are so damn good. I can’t remember how many times we have been there. We decided to walk to the train so we could see some sights and stopped for a great coffee along the way.

We caught the super cute Randen train to Arashiyama. When we got to Arashiyama it was, as expected, insanely busy with tourists. Crazy busy.

Lunch was fabulous. We ordered the special Autumn set and it was so damn good. Even if they did seat us in the weird room with the other foreigners.

After lunch it was time for Matcha icecream. Kyoto is famous for matcha after all. Most places were super busy but we just turned down a little street and found a place that wasn’t busy at all but was still deliciously tasty.

We hung out with the crowds in Arashiyama for a bit before getting back on the train and heading for Kyoto station. From there we walked to our nearby favourite temple (well one of them anyway) – Higashi Hongangi. Last time we were here it was covered up and being worked on so it was great to see it all spruced up and shiny. Also there was a beer festival happening just outside the front gates. We didn’t go to that but it looked like fun.

We needed dinner and we had planned to get ramen as we haven’t had much this trip but then we went in to the depachka food basement of Isetan department store and the lure of Ikura bentos and steamed pork buns from Horai 551 became too much and we decided to buy some things there and eat them up on the rooftop of Kyoto station. There was a big queue for the pork buns but they are worth it. It was harder to find a place to sit up on the rooftop than we thought it would be and I exclaimed “My buns are getting cold!”