Day 12: Shinkansen to Kyoto

Today we went to Kyoto, we used the shinkansen (bullet train) which travels from Osaka to Kyoto in just 15 minutes. The interior of the train kind of looks like an airplane, but as we had non-reserved seats we could pick where we wanted to sit. During the trip you can buy some candy and drinks from a trolley (on longer trips the trolley passes by multiple times).

My original plan was to take the bus from Kyoto station to our hotel. However, as we had quite a lot of luggage we decided to use a taxi (2 taxis actually, as everything did not fit in 1).

We checked in at the Apa Gion hotel, but as we were still too early to enter our room we stored our luggage there and went on our way to explore Kyoto.
Our first destination was the Golden Pavilion, as the name suggests it is a big gold building in a huge garden. The entrance is a bit confusing, you have to pay an entrance fee, but the fee that is on display is not the one you have to pay if you only want to see the pavilion (the actual fee is lower, and I'm not sure what the more expensive one is for). After paying you are handed a ticket, that you give back almost immediately again.

The Pavilion is right at the beginning of the garden, but you are send on the long route by staff. Being the nature loving people we joined a group of people just emerging from their garden walk and went straight to the Pavilion. We were pretty disappointed, the Pavilion was smaller than expected and just did not give us the wow vibe, so after taking some photos we left again to search for Mimuro, a kimono store I wanted to visit.

I had read about Mimuro online, as I was searching for a good place to buy a silk kimono. We had to search for a while, as there weren't that many route guides online, but we did find it eventually. Upon entering the shop we were enthusiastically greeted by an elderly woman, who showed us around on the ground floor. This level holds yukata including special yukatas for taller and/or bigger people.
As I was planning on buying a silk kimono we moved to the first floor. This floor is a lot bigger, with stacks of kimono everywhere. The shop lady explained what kinds of kimono were sold on this floor and in which price ranges. I explained that I would like a kimono for more formal occasions, thus she showed me a few furisode with shorter sleeves. While I was looking through the different colors and motifs another man showed a furisode with longer sleeves, but as this was even more formal (and I felt I wouldn't get that much wear out of it) so I decided to stick for the slightly less formal furisode.
I decided I wanted a pink kimono and found a beautiful salmon one whit a blue print at the bottom. The sales assistant showed me how to put on the kimono and what I needed to complete the outfit, which included a silk kimono where I settled for a nice red one. I ended up whit a huge pile of kimono items.
If you ever decide you want to buy a new kimono I would definitely advice to go to this shop!

We decided to return to the hotel to store my new purchases there and put our luggage in the room. The hotel is conveniently located bordering Gion, so we had decided to have dinner there. But, it seemed like Gion was deserted! As there wasn't much activity here and it seemed like a lot of shops were closed we chose to first go to the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine (or the gate shrine as we conveniently called it) and find a place to eat afterwards.

As you might have already guessed we aren't really the temple/shrine loving kind of people, however we really like the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine. The atmosphere is great, especially when it is getting dark and the lanterns are lighted. We walked around the premises a lot, took many photos and bought our own lucky torii!

The plan to find a nice place after the temple visit didn't really work out that well, the places we could find did not look or smelled good. So we went to the one place you can find nearly everywhere, yes you've guessed right, McDonalds.

All photos can be found at my flickr page