Arashiyama Bamboo Grove - Day 5

Our second (and only full) day in Kyoto, we woke up bright and early in the morning. By bright and early, we literally were out of the house by 6:30am. We arrived at the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest for 7am and there were already some tourists at the forest! It was so peaceful and calming in the forest. All of us stopped to take a few pictures, then continued down the path until we saw a big pond. This pond had lilies and lily pads growing from it! 🪷
We were quite sleep deprived so we walked to a convenience store and got coffee/drinks. Though this was probably not the best idea because we forgot we wanted to visit the original Arabica (%) coffee shop! Some of my friends ordered a second coffee, most of them got a matcha drink! 🍵 I didn’t get another one, but tried their drinks, it was delicious, especially the Kyoto coffee! ☕️
It was around 11am we decided to head towards the famous Arashiyama Monkey Park Iwatayama. This is a monkey park located not too far from the bamboo forest, where you can see monkeys roam around you and even feed them for a small fee. 🐒 They were super cute but a little bit scary because they can come up to anyone waking nearby since they roam free around the area. However, you can only feed the monkeys while you’re in the fenced box. 🙊 I think the most difficult part of this was climbing up the mountain to the monkeys! There was a huge set of stairs, then a long path upwards. It didn’t help that the weather was quite hot and humid that day 🥵 Hydration is so important in this situation.
After this, two of my friends left to go back to the Airbnb since they were pretty tired from walking. The rest of us explored the area a bit more, since there were quite a few cute shops on the street. We walked by some themed cafes, like the miffy cafe, a rilakkuma shop and even a snoopy chocolate shop! 🍽️
As it was only the afternoon, we ended up travelling back to our Airbnb, to have a quick rest. By 2pm, we left again to travel to Higashiyama, which is a town full of cute shops and lots of history! Farheen and I also decided to try on a local kimono. Sadly it was around 3pm when we arrived and a lot of shops were already closing up. Luckily we found one that let us dress up in a clothing similar to kimonos, called Yakutas 👘. They spent a lot of time on Farheen and I, it is not an easy process putting this on. They even did our hair! It was so fun dressing up, and even walking around the small town. We had to return within an hour as they were closing up too.
We ended the day going to a local udon shop, which was run by an older couple, honestly the best udon I’ve ever had! Would definitely recommend going to this restaurant! 🍜
Definitely a long and tiring, but fun day!Read more