Kyoto and Fushimi Inari - Day 4

Today we woke up early to catch the train headed towards Kyoto. We didn’t have much time to get breakfast/coffee so we just grabbed a quick snack at the convenience stores.
The trip was quick, only about a 15 mins train ride. We were initially going to use a coin locker to leave our luggages in so we didn’t have to carry it around before our check-in but we ended up keeping them and grabbing a quick lunch! 🍜
I had my first ramen in Japan and it did not disappoint! The noodles were so chewy and the broth was amazing! Bonus, it was so cheap!! Less than $10 for a bowl! I know Toronto you can’t get a basic ramen bowl for less than $15 now. 🥲
We took the subway to our Airbnb and it wasn’t as great as expected… we opted for a more traditional looking place but it was a lot older than we had thought. All 6 of us were sharing the same Airbnb. Lots of bugs and only 2 people were able to sleep on beds, the rest of us slept on futons. It actually wasn’t bad but we were afraid of the bugs, haha… 😅
Since we got to Kyoto earlier, we decided to visit the Fushimi Inari. It was so nice but very busy as it was later in the afternoon. Before we saw the red gates, we all decided to grab some local snacks. Farheen and I got these popsicles, she got a matcha flavoured one, mine was some sort of milk tea with red bean and mochi. Not that sweet and pretty strong flavours! 😋 The red gates are a very popular spot for tourists. We were going to climb near the top of the mountain because that area has less people and is better for pictures, but we split up. Maya, yebin and I went only part way up, mostly because it was getting dark and there seemed to be a lot of mosquitoes. Farheen, Jen and Nipa went a lot higher up and got lots of pics, but they came back to the bottom pretty late 😂
While the three of us were waiting for Farheen, Nipa and Jen, we decided to pick our fortunes. Unfortunately I got the worst fortune… 🥲 it was a bit hard to read since it was all in Japanese and we had to rely on Google translate, which wasn’t very accurate. Maya got the best fortune and yebin just got a neutral fortune. They have this tradition where if you get a bad fortune, you can tie it up on this fence at the site and leave your bad fortune, which is what I did haha 😅 hopefully nothing bad follows me out of there.
After this, Farheen, Nipa and Jen were pretty tired so they ended up going back to the Airbnb but us three decided to explore the downtown core of Kyoto more. We were staying in a more remote area but the city is similar to Osaka, just a little less people. We settled on a conveyor belt sushi restaurant! It was pretty cool, but a little pricey. I ended up spending ~$25 for dinner just on me, oops 😅 then we were dead tired and just took the train home to sleep!Read more