5 days 4 Night Kyoto Itinerary (D1 and D2)

I know this is rather late, but I really want to post about my 5D4N itinerary of Kyoto last year. It was such a great trip and I can't wait to go there once again if I have the time to. It was such a long time ago so I might be forgetting several details like name of places, prices etc, however I will try to write this as informative and as fun as I can!

This is the simple list of my two days itinerary.

Day 1

Higashi Honganji Temple

Nishi Honganji Temple

Nijo-jo

Yasaka Shrine

Gion (Shirokawa Area)

Day 2

Sanjusangendo Temple

Kiyomizu Dera

Nene no Michi

Ginkakuji

Philosopher’s Path

Nanzenji

Gion (Hanakimozawa Area)

Here I am starting for the flow of day 1 in Kyoto!

From Tokyo to Kyoto, me and my other 2 friends took a night bus from Yoyogi station from around 00.00 am and stop directly at Kyoto Station in the morning around 07.00. The exciting thing about taking the bus is, the bus has to stop several times to have a rest, and one of the resting area is around Fuji Mountain! But I didn't drop off from the bus to explore at that time because it's still so cold I cannot take it. Even when we reach Kyoto, it's still freezing!

First time seeing Kyoto tower from the Kyoto station, take selfies.

After we checked in and dropped our baggage at hotel, we directly go out. Our hotel is only around 10 min walk from the station. Very strategic and got several convenience store around too. What’s fun about my hotel is, they even have this recommended itinerary around Kyoto!

 And we mostly follow this itinerary even though we skipped some unimportant part of it.

The boys planning the journey.

Because it’s our first day, we decided just to explore nearby first. So we tried to go to two temples, Higashi and Nishi Honganji temples. These two temples resemble each other, I say.

After that we went to Nijo-jo, the famous castle that were completed during the reign of Tokugawa Iemitsu. It’s so massive and glorious wtf I'm so speechless. Photo can’t capture it’s glory. Go see yourself for maximum awesomeness hahaha.

I remember we need to take train from Kyoto Station to Nijo-jo Mae Station and have to walk a little bit to reach the front gate.

Satisfied with Nijo-Jo, time flied and it’s around four already So we went straight to Gion area by taking train back to Kyoto station and take the bus to the front of Yasaka Shrine.

From Yasaka Shrine, we walked around Gion and ate yummy traditional desserts! We just visit random interesting dessert shop because we were quite hungry at that time, but not a dinner time yet.. so, snack it is. And we didn't regret it. It cost us around 3.500 yen only for these three glorious dessert!

And not to forget we hunt for Geisha too!! And i can say we kind of fortunate because we saw (to be exact, peeking from window) 2 geishas at one of the restaurant across the river doing their job, customer service and entertaining.. It’s on the second floor on one of these several buildings below. So exciting! !

Andddd that is the end of our day 1. Quite exciting since It’s still the beginning. Feel quite tired, we went back to hotel and getting ready for the second day.

For the second day, because we traveled mostly by bus for the whole day, we brought 500 yen all day bus pass. Oh, and we always start our day around 07.00, breakfast and etc so we can just go to the destination around 09.00. Because in Kyoto, most of the temples usually closed around 16.00 or 17.00, so If your itinerary mostly are temples, you ought to finish it before 16.00, at minimum.

First destination, Sanjusangendo Temple. Massive. Undescribable. Open and clear sky above long structured building. Holy Moly. Something I definitely cannot see in Tokyo.

We went inside the temple too. Satisfied with taking photos, went straight to Kiyomizu Dera by bus from bus station nearby. Kiyomizu Dera was exciting too! Got so many shops that sells food and stuffs on the way to the temple itself.

I remember we got so many distractions at that time. We stopped at several shops, ate several snacks such as matcha ice cream, meat bun, cream puff on our way to and back from Kiyomizu Dera. The temple itself was very breathtaking!

And there’s this “love rock” that said that if somebody can walk from one stone to the other (got two stones) with closed eyes without stumbled with other person, they can find their true love.

Hahahahhaa quite bullsh*t I think, since the space between those two rocks is so far and the spot is so crowded!! Even with both eyes open I crash several person wtf. But however it’s fun. So many love charm being sold too!

From Kiyomizu Dera, we ate our lunch around that area. After lunch we decided to walk to Nene no Michi (Nene’s Road) that’s very famous for its scenery. Got a lot of cute traditional shops too there.

But I don’t know why we three found it very boring and decided to just went off to the next destination, Ginkakuji, by bus again.

The main pathway, so ninja. That's our first reaction seeing this tall plant wall here. So synchronized hahaha

And from there they got several stone art garden as an opening "show", keep following the road and we will find Ginkakuji near the end of the road.

The scenery itself was so calming. If minus all the crowd, it would be more perfect..

From Ginkakuji, we went out and walked directly to another recommended spot, philosopher’s path. They say this road a philosopher's path because there's once a (famous?) Japanese philosopher that used to walk here everyday. And the rest of the story, i don't know ver well I'm sorry. However, again, after we walked a little bit, found it quite boring. 

And suddenly I knew what's wrong. We went there not at the very right time I guess. It’s around end winter so no leaves, no flowers (where it supposed to be full of cherry blossoms everywhere in Kyoto around April) and quite booboo. So without all the flowers, it's not quite attractive, and rather cold. But on the other hand, it wasn't a peak season thus not crowded and we can enjoy the peacefulness more.

From there we kinda run to Nanzenji Temple nearby only to find that It has been closed already L At least I can took several photos even though only the main gate.

Why the hell all the temples in Kyoto is so massive???? Unbelievable.

Finish with all the temples, we went back again to around Gion area and explore more of the shopping areas and geisha hunting. We ate yakiniku buffet too there! What's  awesome about Gion is here's this side of "vintage Japan" and "modern Japan" that contrast each other!

We glad we took a little bit more time to explore Gion. And the best part is!! Finally we found a real geisha walking in front of our eyes!! She walked so fast and so shy I cannot even took photos of her. We found her when we walked a small path in the middle of nowhere, so it was kinda unexpected. Can't even prepare for camera. Several random tourist just stare in awe of her, cannot do anything, so shocked and stunned from awesomeness. So funny!!

However, conclusion for day 2, awesooooome. So much better than first day. Great travel good food. There’s nothing can beat that. 

Alrighty! Posting next day itinerary soon!

(continue to part 2)

And if you want to read the other 2 post related to this Kyoto trip, here are the part 2 and part 3.