10 October 2026
No alarm today. We decided yesterday evening not to visit the bamboo forest that everybody goes to. After the mass tourism we saw yesterday, we don’t need that one more time. Best to just lie in bed and get some rest.
We get up at 9:00, and the first plan of the day is, of course, breakfast. At the first café, the owner tried to say something in English, but we didn’t know what he meant by “let us wait,” so we left and went further down the road to another café. Small and good enough. I got a toast with ham, cheese and a cooked egg, as well as an iced black tea.
We’re doing some shopping. Okay, I haven’t gotten through my list yet, and Tim isn’t opposed. That means a bus to the area we were in two days ago. It’s hot again. We leave the hotel with sunblock already applied.
A department store we visited had nice air conditioning but nothing of real interest, and high prices. The real goal is Nishiki Market, which we walked through on our first day. Now we come in from the other side. Each shop specialises in one thing, fish in one, sweets in the next, shoes in another. Keep left (a guy with a sign is walking around) and don’t eat while walking. We find some shops with chopsticks and get some chopstick rests. I also find another shop with interesting stuff I might have bought (forgot something in Tokyo), and I get myself a hanko stamp (Komago, a strong bear) for a reasonable price.
Lunch for Tim is at a sushi place. I just join him, eating that dead fish. After that we pick up the stamp, now finished. We have good time, and I skip lunch. The bus stop is around the corner, with the 205 bus to Kyoto Station.
In the underground there’s a food hall with all kinds of food. Many have a long queue in front of the restaurant. I go for a Japanese-Chinese restaurant and get some gyoza and fried chicken, while Tim gets some fried curry shrimp. We swap a piece each. Not bad, I have to say.
Then to the south exit and towards teamLab. I’ll link the description of what it is. Short version: a digital art exhibition with interactive elements. We are, of course, too early, and have to wait until 14:50 before we’re allowed to enter.
This is a maze, and you lose your orientation completely. We go the whole loop and discover that we missed half of the interactive stuff. So back to the start, searching for every more or less hidden passage. We think we got everything. Just that we have to get all the way up again, and then down again, to get to the exit. An interesting experience, one I haven’t had before.
Back to the station. No luck finding the geocache there. We have a table reserved at an Italian restaurant that Tim’s aunt recommended from her visit: Mr. Maurice’s Italian Restaurant & Rooftop Bar. Four stops north on the subway. A nice restaurant on the third floor of a hotel. We’re early but get to choose our seats. Comfy, and a nice place.
I go for the 5-course menu, Tim for 6. I get roasted pork with onion and balsamic, bruschetta with ricotta, homemade spaghetti cacio e pepe, chicken thigh with a vegetable ragout, and a chestnut tiramisu for dessert. Accompanied by a homemade limoncello, an amaretto apple spritz, a prosecco, and an apple chai latte to finish.
Back to the station by subway, then walking back to the hotel. So much for trying to reduce the step count today. This was our last day in Kyoto. Tomorrow we continue to Osaka.
Kyoto was more disappointing as a sightseeing destination overall. We’d pick the out-of-the-city experiences, like Nikko and the beach day in Zushi, as bigger highlights. Tokyo was different, easier to get around, but in the end it’s a big city. And then there’s the mass tourism in some places, where I can understand why locals get fed up with it. Get there, take the picture, and out again. We tried to see more: get to the summit of Mount Inari, visit the less popular mausoleum in Nikko, and the imperial villa. We also still agree that Kawagoe wasn’t worth the trip.
Let’s see what the rest of the trip brings.
