4 February 2026
Day 14 (Travel to Kyoto from Osaka) 28th Jan.
A short train ride away was Kyoto, we were trying to take it easy since Osaka had left us pretty drained. Even though Kyoto was a short train ride, our accommodation was another hour long bus ride away, and keeping our luggage on a busy bus was not very fun for anyone. I was sitting down and so laden with my bags that when an elderly lady boarded the bus, I wasn’t really able to stand up without causing more trouble. I offered to and she indicated it was fine, but man was I worried that a sharp brake would tumble her over. She was fine.
We got to our accommodation and it was by far the most comfortable apartment of our time in Japan. Very spacious and lots of places and ways to relax. I really liked the table on the bottom level that had chairs at the same level so you’re half lying down instead of sitting. It also had a room that we didn’t use at all which would’ve been good to do yoga or relaxation in.
It was a pity were were only here for 3 days, but the location was a bit tricky and we probably did everything within a 30 minute walk by the end of our days in Kyoto. I will say, as a theme of the trip, I personally enjoyed staying in the suburbs instead of in cities, since we got to feel the Japanese soul of the city a bit better in my opinion. Less tourists, and less stuff designed for foreign tourists. Which means there’s less Japanese people sick of tourists too, which lets us have more genuine interactions.
We were getting ready to go out for lunch and found a good looking place on google maps that was only around the corner from our AirBNB. Since we were in such a suburban area we didn’t think there’d be a risk of needing to book. Anyway, we got there, and it was totally full of tourists that’d come from all over the city to try this famous ramen restaurant. We had to wait 30 minutes before they’d have a spot free, so we went for an explore of the streets.
During our exploration, it started to snow! It was our first time seeing snow on the trip. Very exciting and cute, and cold. We went back to the ramen restaurant early and waited inside. The food there was great but it was a weird Vietnamese/Japanese fusion where it was duck ramen with coriander, with a really starchy soup. Always good to have something different I guess.
We went home and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon/evening. I went to a 7 eleven to get cash-out, some dinner, and have a look around while Clare did some PHD work. At the 7 eleven I got a bunch of karaage chicken and this peach ice-cream. Peach ice cream was a big win, I love that most confectionary in Japan is fruit flavour and they really taste like the fruit.
Day 15 (Kyoto Golden shrine) 29th Jan
At the shrine we met a Japanese family of two elderly people and their daughter who didn’t speak English. It was great, we took photos for each other and had a nice interaction. It really seemed like they wanted us to understand something and I wasn’t getting it, she kept flapping her arms and pointing at the top of the shrine, and in my mind I’m like “yeah, I like birds too, I can’t see one at the top of the shrine though, what the hell are you on about”. I tried getting out Google translate and typed in “How can I help you?” which I thought would help things because she’d be able to read the Japanese and reply. Then she read it out in English and I got so confused I felt like I had to leave. Anyway, the next day Clare let me know they were practicing speaking English to us and she’d been having conversations with all three family members in English. I really fucked the interaction up. Here’s the photo they took of us.
This was the shrine “Kinkaku-ji” where you can see there IS a bird at the top, it’s a phoenix. The shrine is very gold, it’s an interesting place to go. Not very soulful, a bit like going to Vatican city. Lots of venders and gift shops.
Afterwards we had a really nice coffee and conversation with the business owner at a hole in the wall cafe outside the shrine complex. You can see the coffee review here.
That morning we’d found a woodblock print gallery that had good original woodblock print artworks for sale at a good price. I got one from a local artist, see below, it cost roughly $500.
In the afternoon we returned and bought the print, using our passport to be tax exempt. The gallery owner showed us some of the cherry wood printing blocks, which were so impressively carved. Since cherry wood was so expensive/rare, they’d get a thin piece of cherrywood glued to a thick plywood block for strength. Every colour on the painting requires its own carved block, which for a painting like this one, boggles my mind.
Day 16 (Nara visit and Kyoto train station) 30th Jan
Bought glasses at Jins and had a tea tasting.
Day 17 (Kyoto to Hakusan) 31st Jan
Day 18 (Hotpot and Hike) 1st Feb
Day 19 (Onsen and Shrine) 2nd Feb
Day 20 (Hakusan Skiing) 3rd Feb
Big first day for us to go skiing! We put our faith in our AirBNB host Kon san, who took us to “the ski fields with a better view”. The close ski fields were 15 minutes drive and he took us to a resort 30 minutes drive from our residence, called Hakusan Ichirino Onsen ski area. Extremely kind of him to drive us around like that. When we got there he helped us rent skis and boots, since it’s not a popular tourist location, not many people hadEnglish, and our Japanese was still limited to politeness. The cost was $40 for lift/gondola access, and $30 for the rental equipment, between a quarter to a third of the price of skiing at perisher.
There was fresh powder, and very few people skiing. Clare got her legs and hardly crashed through the whole day, very impressive for her second day. She did a few intermediate tracks which wore her down quickly, and I spent the last bit of the afternoon trying to find an impressive black run that Clare would be able to see from the cafe window. I didn’t end up finding the run but I did have a great time.
Kon picked us up at 3:30pm, and asked if he could take us to his favourite lookout location. Of course we were all for it, and so we drove further up and around the mountain in his van. The snow on the sides of the road that had been bulldozed aside were taller than me, nearly 2 meters of ice and powder. The road took us to a two floor cabin, and inside was an observation level where telescopes, binoculars, and high zoom camera’s/recorders were looking at serow (Japanese mountain goats) and deer. We had a great chat with the observers thanks to Kon san translating.
When we got home we quickly went out again to do a coin laundry wash, and have some sushi. The coin laundry did all of our clothes, washed and dried in an hour from the same machine for $7, which I thought was pretty good.
