JAPAN
Japan 2023 Day 14-15 - Sapporo to Kyoto
The 8th was a day of travel. We had our breakfast at the Tokyu Stay hotel in Sapporo and then started the journey to the airport to fly to Kyoto. This involved a subway ride to the JR line.
Airport security was slow but we got lucky (? haha) in that our flight was slightly delayed so we weren’t too stressed about missing boarding. The flight from Sapporo to Kyoto is also only a few hours.
From the Kyoto airport we took a JR train to Kyoto station and then finally a bus to our hotel. WHEW! That ended up being 9 hours of travel total.
Worth it to get here!
We’re staying at the Hotel Resol Kyoto Kawaramachi Sanjo for our first few days here. The bathroom in our room is nearly indistinguishable from the one at the Tokyu Stay and it also has a breakfast buffet for a similar price.
The room is really cute – we have a bamboo style window shade over our window. Also I think the bed is slightly more comfortable.
This place is nestled back from the action of the main street slightly so it’s quiet but a total breeze to walk to a bunch of restaurants and shopping. Right across the street is Uniqlo and a New York MoMa shop!?
We were hungry for dinner and tried Moritaya sukiyaki first but they were full. Once again we found a nearly identical replacement restaurant right next door called Sukiyaki Komai Tei that was able to seat us right away. I think Moritaya seemed a tad fancier and we did still make a reservation there for Friday so we’ll be able to compare.
Komai Tei was excellent in its own right though. We go the premium meat course and some sake and I have no complaints. While the waitress didn’t speak much English we had a funny little back and forth trying to figure out what some of the food items in the dish were, mainly the “gluten cakes” that look a bit like mochi or tofu. Check out this article I found for more information.
I just checked and I took zero pictures of that dinner!
Kyoto is known for its many Shinto temples and pastoral architecture. It’s surrounded by mountains so the city is incredibly picturesque. So on the 9th we planned to hit our first shrine, Fushimi Inari.
First: coffee and breakfast. We walked to a nearby café that was recommended online called Smart Coffee. We actually were seated pretty quickly and had an excellent breakfast here. They don’t serve espresso but I liked their coffee and I got easily the best french toast of my entire life here.
Fushimi Inari is best known for the trail that goes through thousands of orange Torii gates. This has a really cool effect on how it feels to walk through them and look around each bend. It also winds its way through a legit mountain pass so you get some great views of the city and the local trees and plants. There are signs that say beware of monkeys and boars but we didn’t see any on this trip.
This was quite a hike up to say the least as we did the full loop. The signs don’t say how far or how much elevation but it felt like probably 800 feet of elevation gain and something like a mile round trip. I unfortunately keep forgetting to track these things with my Garmin :(
Along the hike there are food stalls, vending machines, souvenir shops, and quick asides with clusters of shrines big and small. You can purchase your own miniature torii to write your wish on and I guess they’ll place it among these.
Originally we had planned to try to do two shrines today as there’s a few close by but our friends were pretty zonked and we needed lunch anyways. On our way in we had passed a boba place we wanted to go back to to fuel up a bit and that was called OWL TEA&BANANA LAB&CRAZY WAFFLE.
As you can see the reviews are uh, a little rough. I thought my caramel with cream waffle taco thing was very nice and tasty but the boba left something to be desired in my opinion.
We kept walking to the nearby JR station and rode the train.
It seems like it’s pretty common to have a transit system double as a giant mall with all manner of stores and restaurants. This mall was also pretty crazy because it went up a huge flight of stairs and there was a terrace at the top to look out over the city.
The spot we chose to eat at was called Katsukura which is a chain restaurant serving tonkatsu, or pork tempura. I have to admit that while the others were discussing it I was imagining tonkatsu ramen but I ended up not being disappointed.
It’s fun that you get to grind up your own sesame seeds with a mortar and pestle to mix with whichever sauce your heart desires.
We got the premium pork and it was incredibly tender. The tempura coating was nice and buttery and crunchy too! I got a beer there as well to wash everything down with and left feeling quite satisfied.
We headed back to the hotel from there to digest and blog for a few hours and ended up getting a late dinner. And by late I mean like 9 PM we went to Monsen Kiyamachi to try to get some chicken ramen for dinner. They were having technical difficulties so we ended up having to switch gears after a cold 20 minute wait to see if they’d open up. We decided to go to Ichiran instead.
Ichiran is fun because you eat ramen in single person stalls, order with a machine, and essentially never have to interact with a waiter if you don’t want to. You can use these special wooden tiles to make requests of the waiters, pour your own water, eat your food and then leave. Also one of the tile requests is to complan if the restaurant is too noisy!
The US has Ichiran locations but not in San Francisco so this still felt novel. Also I suspect the quality is a bit higher here in Japan. I thought the broth and chashu were incredible but the noodles were a little al dente for my taste. Luckily if I ever go back I can request them to be cooked more.
I also thought the medium spicy level packed more of a kick than I was expecting.
