We weren’t able to go around Kyoto before as it was raining and we arrived late we went there a few years ago.
I told my dad that we should head to Kyoto early so that we can go to a lot of places (spoiler alert: we weren’t able to visit all the places on my list, but at least we have a reason to go back!)
Places we went to around Kyoto (in order)
1. Arashiyama Bamboo Forest
2. Iwatayama Monkey Park
3. Fushimi Inari Taisha
4. Nishiki Market
5. Downtown Kyoto
*2023 update*
I’m adding a new place that we were able to go to in Kyoto – Ninenzaka Street! It was raining when we went there so I definitely have to go back to explore more about the place! I’ll write about Ninenzaka Street below after Downtown Kyoto!
So for our first location around Kyoto, I decided to go to the famous Arashiyama Bamboo Forest since it was the farthest one from the list.
You can ride the subway all the way to Arashiyama Bamboo Forest but the walk is very far. Upon doing some research, you can ride a local bus that will take you directly to Arashiyama Bamboo Forest.
How to go to Arashiyama Bamboo Forest :
1. Get down at Saiin station (HK-83)
2. Exit North Gate















This is one of the destinations for NCT Life in Osaka (episode 18) :
After spending some time at Arashiyama Bamboo Forest, we walked towards Iwatayama Monkey Park. We wanted to see some Japanese macaque monkeys!!






After spending some time with the Japanese macaque monkeys, we decided to have lunch in town.
I forgot to take a photo of what the restaurant looked like (sorry we were really hungry), but this is what was displayed!


After having lunch, we proceeded to Fushimi Inari Taisha. We rode bus 28, but this time heading to Kyoto Station.
How to go to Fushimi Inari :
1. Ride JR Nara Line heading to Nara from Kyoto
2. Get down at Inari Station


We wanted to climb the whole Fushimi Inari but our energy got drained from the Monkey Park, but hopefully next time!
After taking some photos, we decided to go have some grilled Quail. We discovered this restaurant while looking for a place to eat way back! The restaurant’s name is Hinoya(日野家)!





After having some grilled Quail meat, we decided to head to Nishiki Market!! I am OBSESSED with the Tofu Doughnuts I ate before!! I told my dad that we have to go back for some Tofu Doughnuts.
How to go to Nishiki Market Market:
(The station and the exit were a bit far from Nishiki Market so I will recommend a better one below. I will be using Google Maps with “showing” you on how you can get there)
1. Get down at Karasuma Station
2. Exit 16











After fulfilling my Tofu Doughnut cravings, we went back to Downtown Kyoto to meet up with my friend, Enzo for dinner. He’s taking up his master’s in Kyoto!
He recommended a good katsu place to us, so we headed there for dinner. The place is called Katsukura and this is how the place looked like from outside.

After dinner, he took us to a place where everything was priced at 270 yen! This was the only photo I was able to take, as we were busy catching up! He mentioned that there are a lot of branches of this place around Kyoto.
all photos taken using an iPhone / Fujifilm X-T20 18-55 mm
And that’s how we ended our day trip to Kyoto!
Ninenzaka Street :
During my trip in 2023, I wanted to somewhere new so we didn’t go to Arashiyama Bamboo Forest anymore. We rode the bus heading there. It was raining so much so it was difficult for me to take photos 😭. I’ll definitely update this post if I get the chance to head back!



I didn’t know where to go during that time because I could not see where we were going. I was just going with the flow with the crowd. I decided to hide in Starbucks instead while waiting for the rain to stop. (Spoiler alert it did not stop and it continued to rain until we went home)









Watch my Osaka Travel Film here!
💚, R