Sorry for disappearing for a while. This year has been a whirlwind of unexpected events for me. For most of the time, I've been restless and have always been looking for an excuse to travel or simply "go away". This time, I've planned this trip to Japan over a year ago, in place of a trip to Paris.
The last time I was in Japan was in Tokyo 1996. So as not to disclose my age, my last memory of Japan was Tokyo Disneyland. For this time though, I've decided to skip the theme parks and go see the "real" sights with my mom. She has been to Japan numerous times and I believe this city to be her second home.
We agreed to meet at Narita Airport. I of course booked very cheap flights so I had a layover in Taipei Taoyuan International for 8 hours on my way to Narita. Not wanting to leave the airport, I booked a "room" at the Plaza Premium Lounge. There's a nice shower there with a few lounge seats, plus a free meal. I was able to rest well and took a few more hours of shut eye before my flight to Narita.
After a few more hours on the plane, I finally arrived in Tokyo and met up with mom. My flight was slightly delayed because of the storm and it kept following us everywhere during this trip.
Mom and I went straight to the JR Ticket office to get our passes exchanged for real tickets and took the Narita Express to JR Shinagawa. We checked into Shinagawa Tobu Hotel for the night and went out to look for a light dinner before calling it a night. The closest one to our hotel is called Royal Host, which I later discovered has a chain of stores all over Japan. Link to what we ate and ordered here.
The next day, we checked out of the hotel and went to JR Shinagawa for our trip to Kyoto.
I really fell in love with Yasaka Shrine. It is just beautiful, especially at night, when they light up all the lanterns as you will see in another post later.
The last time I was in Japan was in Tokyo 1996. So as not to disclose my age, my last memory of Japan was Tokyo Disneyland. For this time though, I've decided to skip the theme parks and go see the "real" sights with my mom. She has been to Japan numerous times and I believe this city to be her second home.
We agreed to meet at Narita Airport. I of course booked very cheap flights so I had a layover in Taipei Taoyuan International for 8 hours on my way to Narita. Not wanting to leave the airport, I booked a "room" at the Plaza Premium Lounge. There's a nice shower there with a few lounge seats, plus a free meal. I was able to rest well and took a few more hours of shut eye before my flight to Narita.
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| The room of the Plaza Premium at Taoyuan Airport |
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| My free breakfast of chicken porridge, salad with minced braised pork, glutinous rice balls, a cold crabstick roll with cucumber and an egg omelet |
Mom and I went straight to the JR Ticket office to get our passes exchanged for real tickets and took the Narita Express to JR Shinagawa. We checked into Shinagawa Tobu Hotel for the night and went out to look for a light dinner before calling it a night. The closest one to our hotel is called Royal Host, which I later discovered has a chain of stores all over Japan. Link to what we ate and ordered here.
The next day, we checked out of the hotel and went to JR Shinagawa for our trip to Kyoto.
The trip took us about 3-4 hours to get to Kyoto Station. And from there, we had lunch at Tenichi Tempura.
We walked around Kyoto Iseten with our luggages and there was a Hokkaido Food Exhibit. Nothing interesting caught my eye specifically except for this picture that has loads and loads of fish roe! My eyes almost popped out!
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| Roe, roe and more roe at the Hokkaido Food Exhibit |
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| Kyoto Isetan's Ramen Street |
Afterwards, we find our way to our hotel Gion Miyagawacho Grandeverie near the Gion Shijo Station. It's a nice little hotel near the Gion district with plenty of sights and food. This is our hoard from Kyoto Isetan.
We got red bean mochi, some salted rice crackers, coffee (they don't have local coffee in Japan, they instead love coffee from Indonesia) and pickles (Kyoto should be called pickle town, next to green tea/matcha).
I really fell in love with Yasaka Shrine. It is just beautiful, especially at night, when they light up all the lanterns as you will see in another post later.
This is the Gion district at night. Very commercialized and a lot very fancy restaurants that require booking. I think a lot of the Michelin starred restaurants are here as well. Still, it's a nice walk along the not too busy part of the streets and has a very nostalgic atmosphere of old Japan.
Next stop was dinner! Mom and I walked around to find Hishio Ramen and had their delicious soy milk ramen. Afterwards, was dessert from Tsujiri Honten.
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