Bryce and I have been planning a trip to Japan and Korea for over 2 years with Kyle and Danielle. Since Danielle really wanted to go to Kyoto, and due to the fact that it was a direct flight from LA and cheaper for Kyle and Danielle as well, we all did a couple days in Kyoto as our layover before leaving for Korea.
Keep on reading for our day-by-day adventures!
Day 0: Saturday and Sunday October 11 and October 12, 2025 Travel Day
Bryce and I woke up at 3:00am and left our house at 3:30am. We arrived at the airport parking lot at 4:00am and checked into security by 4:30am. The airport was pretty empty, but we played board games on our phones until our flight to LA. I mainly napped on our flight over to LAX. Once we arrived, we bought our $50 dollar burrito for lunch and our $8 bottle of water. We met up with Kyle and Danielle and finally took off around 3:00pm. Customs and immigration was super easy in Japan. It was really quick and took minutes. Bryce and I bought our train ticket to Kyoto (about an hour and 15 minutes from the airport) and arrived around 10:00pm. Our first meal was a noodle shop near the train station. I got dan dan udon and Bryce got soba noodles. After quickly eating, we walked to our hotel about 15 minutes away and checked in. It was time to finally sleep, although the beds in Japan were not the most comfortable! While we left our house at 3:30am on Saturday, we didn’t get to our hotel room until 11:00pm on Sunday!
Day 2: Monday October 13, 2025 Arashiyama (Bamboo Forest, Tenryu-ji, Monkey Park) and GEAR Theatre
Kyle and Danielle were also up by 6:00am, so we walked to their hotel (they stayed at a different hotel a 5 minute walk away) and we got some pre-made food from 7-Eleven. I found this cold pasta salad that I really enjoyed that had vegetables, chicken, and a lemon/soy sauce dressing on it. It was so easy to buy pre-made food (hot and cold) from the 7-Elevens. We figured out the train station and bought a ticket to Arashiyama. Our first stop was the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest. The Bamboo Forest is about 6 square miles of walking paths but it only took about 30 minutes to walk the entire main path. We also walked by a large calm pond called the Okura-ike Pond. It was full of lotus (which apparently bloom in late July) and ducks if you looked close enough.
Located just a few steps from the Bamboo Forest is the Tenryi-ji Temple. This was founded in 1339 and completed in 1345 and is currently a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Sogenchi Garden and the Sogen Pond were my favorite parts about this Temple. I love Japanese style gardens and this one was so pretty with the water and the trees in the background.
After the Temple, we walked to Arashiyama Monkey Park. It felt like we had to walk straight up a hill to get to the Monkey hut, but once we got there, we were able to feed the monkeys! We could only feed them inside the hut, but outside of the building, the monkeys could walk around and sometimes walked right in front of the people. The monkeys in the park are known as the “Japanese Monkey” (macaca fuscata) and the park is home to 120 monkeys. These monkeys have red faces and red buttocks and live to 30 years old.
We also walked over the Togetsukyo Bridge, a 155 meter bridge that was really pretty. It was originally built in 836 but was reinforced with wood looking concrete in 1934. The bridge crosses the Katsura River which was not very deep when we crossed. We were able to see so many birds including the little egret, the great egret, a gray heron, and a blue crow (although there are a few different blue crows that can be found near this river so I’m not sure which one we saw).
After our morning activities, we stopped for Ramen at Tenryu Ramen. I had the Tonkatsu Ramen with pork cutlet, bean sprouts, green onion, roasted pork fillet and bamboo shoots. Bryce had the Char Siu Ramen which had a roasted pork fillet, bean sprouts, green onion, seasoned boiled egg, and bamboo shoots. For a snack, we tried matcha ice cream. I’m not crazy about matcha and thought the ice cream would be a better version of matcha. It really wasn’t that much better, as it just tasted like sweet grass instead of unsweet grass. But the little rice ducks they added to the ice cream was fun. After lunch we walked around Arashiyama and did some shopping.
While walking back to the train station, we found the Kimono Forest, a permanent art installation that features 600 cylindrical poles that had 32 different patterns of fabric encased in acrylic poles. While we didn’t see them light up in the evening, it was still fun and colorful to walk the Kimono Forest path.
Once we returned to our hotel, we were able to rest for a few hours before we decided to go back out. We stopped at the Pokémon Store, the Sanrio Store, and then went to the non-verbal theatre GEAR show. During the 90 minute show, the actors do not speak and the audience sees the story unfold through acting and fun stage effects. The main character was Doll, who sparks life into these “robots”. The “robots” did acts such as break dancing, “swimming” underwater, magic tricks, and juggling. I loved how they highlighted and outlined the stage set with different lighting techniques. After the show, we were all tired. Bryce and I ended up just grabbing a quick dinner from 7-Eleven.
Day 3: Tuesday October 14, 2025 Torii Gates, Nijo-jo Castle, Confectionery Museum
We all stopped at 7-Eleven again for a quick breakfast before heading over to Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine to see the Senbon Torii. Torii is a Japanese gate that is a symbolic marking of the transition to the sacred. Other countries also use Torii related gates, but the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine is known as the “Thousand Torii Gates”. The shrine of the Kami Inari has a trail to the top of the mountain, about a 2.5 mile hike upwards. Kyle and Danielle went up to the top, but Bryce and I strolled many of the Torii gates. While there are around 800 torii gates along the main path, there are many smaller personalized torii engraved by citizens with family members’ names on them. There are also foxes (known as messengers) that line the paths as well.
Our next stop was the Nijo-jo Castle, an UNESCO World Heritage Site that was completed in 1603 by the order of the first Shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu. The Castle was the residence of the Shogun while in Kyoto, or housed the Nijo Zaiban samurai guards when the Shogun was not present. The rule of the Imperial Court and the first samurai government was established in Kamakura in 1185 and political rule was taken over by the samurai. Since the head of the Kamakura samurai government was officially granted the title of Seii-Taishogun, this name was later abbreviated to Shogun. This is basically a very ancient court appointment dating back to the 8th century (like a commander-in-chief). While this started as a temporary appointment, it became a permanent position for the political ruler of Japan after 1192. We walked the many gardens and walked the Ninomaru-goten Palace. This palace consists of 6 connected buildings with intricate paintings between the rooms such as the Tozamurai (waiting room), the Shikidai (reception room), the Ohiroma San-no-ma (third room), the Ohiroma Ich-no-ma, Ni-no-ma (grand hall), the Kohiroma (small grand hall), Shiro-shoin (sitting room), Ohiroma Yon-no-ma (fourth room), Shikidai Roju-no-ma (senior counselor’s room), Tozamurai Chokushi-no-ma (messenger’s room) and Tozamurai Yanagi-no-ma (willow room). While these are not all originals, we were able to view the "Fourth Room of the Kuroshoin” as a special exhibition in a separate museum hall.
We all grabbed lunch together after the Castle. We wanted sushi but couldn’t find the restaurant. And we were so tired that we didn’t want to keep searching, so we stopped at a local dan dan restaurant. It was so good! I think it was one of our favorite meals in Japan for all of us. After lunch, we split off from Kyle and Danielle. We were leaving a day earlier and they wanted to see some other sites that would make us late for the train. Instead, Bryce and I went to a little museum off of the main path. We found the Kyoto Confectionery Museum. The second floor is the exhibition room, which was really small and prohibited cameras and pictures. Nonetheless, the displays of both “kasyoku” (the flambeau of blooms) and “Syunjyu” (spring and autumn) were very detailed and so beautiful. According to the museum, ornamental sugar-art confectionery is extremely artistic. Most of the ornamental sugar-art confectionery is made with Dainagon (red beans) and refined Japanese sugar known as “Wasanbon”. After, we were able to sit at the Ryureiseki “Shoun-ken” for a tea ceremony. However, since it was only us, we just ate some confectionery and drank a bowl of green tea. Bryce and I left shortly after we finished our confectionery treat and green tea. We rode the Hello Kitty train back to Osaka, checked into the airport, grabbed a quick dinner, and then we were off to Seoul!
All good trips have an end, and our time in Japan had come to an end. I was ready to arrive in Seoul and celebrate our first full day in Korea on my birthday. It was a fun adventure to explore Kyoto and we were happy that Danielle wanted to do a quick layover in Japan.