Next stop in Japan, we’ve travelled further south to Kyoto. Day one was exhausting, our overnight bus (which we hardly slept on) got in at 6:45am and dropped us on the side of the street and we had to work out a new city and make our way to our hostel to drop our bags off feeling like zombies. We couldn’t check in until 4pm so met up with some other guys and headed out for the day. First stop was Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, which was sensational. The bamboo was as tall as the sky and everywhere you looked there were different shades of colour. It certainly made the lack of sleep seem like a distant memory being in the fresh air and exploring such a wicked place, jungle vibes but completely different at the same time. We walked for ages and it didn’t seem to end, weaved inbetween train tracks and streets and we really did get lost in the paths.

There were lots of temples here as part of a complex called Jojakko-Ji and we spent so much time exploring these, and again, there were so many and we could’ve spent a whole day here. We did the hike all the way to the top of the mountain too (I genuinely cannot believe how much we achieved on just two hours sleep) and the views were breathtaking. We stayed here for a little while just taking in what was surrounding us before making beginning our descent and stopping to look at more temples on the way. When we got back down to ground level we continued our walk through the bamboo and came across a really quirky container café next to a factory (maybe?) where they were cutting the bamboo ready for it to be passed onto its next place, so sat here and enjoyed watching that for a little while, whilst taking shade from the sun!

We walked through the village of Arashiyama for a little while which was wonderfully traditional and quite frankly, picturesque, before our next stop, Iwatayama Monkey Mountain! We decided on this because on the website it was described as a ‘gentle uphill walk’, because of how tired we were we thought we could hack it as we still had some time to kill before check-in and knew we would really enjoy the experience at the top seeing the wild monkeys, and getting the chance to feed them. We were wrong, the website lied to us, it was not a gentle walk, it was a full on hike to the top. Bearing in mind we had just climbed a mountain to see the views over Kyoto we were not prepared for another uphill hike, however, as with before, once we got to the top we forgot all about it as the views were breathtaking.

The monkeys were super cute, they weren’t really interested in humans unless we had food for them, and they weren’t as cheeky as the ones I encountered in Cambodia which stole my water bottle. There was a feeding hut though where you could get some nuts and apple and feed them through some fencing (purely so you don’t get bitten) and it was the weirdest thing, humans inside and monkeys outside so that they could continue to roam wherever they wanted to, whenever they wanted to. The little baby monkeys were the cutest and definitely attracted the most attention, but I loved the whole experience and genuinely could have spent hours up here just watching them interact with eachother and living their lives.

We then headed back into the main city centre and went to Nishiki Market to get some street food, en route though I found a Lindt store!! I think I posted before that since I’ve been away, I’ve craved proper chocolate, like decent, nice, no messing around chocolate. My eyes lit up when I saw the Lindt shop and in that moment I didn’t care how much I needed to pay to get my hands on some. The lady at the front of the shop gave us a chocolate each for free which just made me want even more and I ended up spending £7 on 10 chocolates (what on earth) but in that moment, I was so happy that I didn’t care. The chocolates did not last long but they tasted incredible and was just what I needed.

Anyway, Nishiki Market. It’s a market which has a combination of food and other shops which is all more local street vibes. We could’ve eaten a feast here. We tried some sushi, wagyu gyozas, Japanese fried chicken, yakitori, takoyaki, mochi and more. Luckily all the different bits were ‘snack size’ so we could share them between us and get more different food options to try without feeling too full. We had so many different things and they all tasted insane. I love Asian food so much and feel like I’m actually going to be the size of a house by the time I get back to England. After we’d eaten the tiredness hit us like a brick wall and we were so ready for a snooze. The combination of not much sleep, fresh air, lots of steps and good food was finally catching up with this but luckily, by this point, it had passed check-in time and we were craving a lie-down so we split up and headed back to our hostel for a bit. We had a nap (4 hours or so) and then headed out and grabbed some dinner before checking out for the night ready for another day of adventures tomorrow.

Day two in Kyoto was really cool, we went to a traditional Japanese tea ceremony first up, which was just so cool and a definite once in a lifetime experience. Our host was amazing, she talked us through the whole ceremony and even let us grind and prepare our own matcha, explaining how it is drunk with Japanese sweets and what order things happen in. We even got to pick our own tea bowl that we wanted to drink out of! I picked green obviously as my favourite colour. We had the best time and even though I’m not the biggest fan of matcha, I really did enjoy it and maybe drinking it in the traditional way without anything extra made a difference. We left feeling super happy, the only thing that would have made it 11/10 would have been if we could have dressed up in kimonos!

After the tea ceremony we had to sit down and book some accomodation so we actually had somewhere to sleep the following night, we got told that there was a big festival and national holiday in Japan this weekend which is why there was hardly any accomodation available anywhere across the country, and if there was, it was spenny! Though a slightly stressful experience, we found somewhere in Nara for the night and also managed to get a really nice strawberry and banana crêpe for our troubles, which really did hit the spot.

From here, some of the lads wanted to go to an Onsen so we left them to it and a few of us found a cool looking side street to head up, and it led to a whole load of temples and quaint streets and we spent the next three hours exploring. We visited Kiyomizu-Dera, Hokan-Ji and also wandered through Ninenzaka. We also managed to watch the sunset at the top of one of the temples and I think I might have shed a tear.. there’s a song that is really defining my travel experiences at the minute, it’s called ‘Heaven’ by The Blaze and it was playing through ym AirPods whilst we were watching the sun go down and it hit the spot of where I just realised again that this is my life right now. I genuinely cannot believe that this is the life I am living each day.

After we finished exploring the temples we wandered through a park next door and found the most incredible lanterns lighting up another temple, and kept going to a lake to see if we could spot some fish, unfortunately it was dark by this time so no luck. We then met up with the others and found a decent soba restaurant for dinner and from here we were ready to settle in for the night and get packed up for moving on tomorrow. We’re heading to Nara! Luckily, although we’re moving quite a lot over the next few days, all the places are only about an hour from eachother via train so it’s not too many dramatic travel days like we’ve had over the last however long. See you there for more adventures, Mads x