July 3, 2017

Post card from / Kyoto Part 1

Konnichiwa everyone! I just got back from my Japan trip this morning at 4AM in the morning – at first I was like "4AM are you serious?" but after realising that the Ramadhan break is almost over, people will be swarming the airport, nah uh – 4AM was indeed the perfect time to come home. This morning, the airport, traffic going back home were empty. It only took me around 15 mins to get home. Went straight to bed once I got home.
7 days, 6 nights – Started my #kerotravelseries with Kyoto. There was no direct flight to Kyoto, so we went to Osaka first and took a train to Kyoto. Travel tips: you don't need to buy your train tickets in Jakarta, you can just buy it on the spot. This way you can avoid missing your train, just in case you got delayed (which happened to me) – train station is directly connected to the airport terminal (only 2 minutes walk!). Price was around 3000 yen if I'm not wrong – you can buy either reserved seats or the regular seats. Price difference prolly twice of the regular seat tickets. Reserved seats means you don't need to worry about your seat location, you can stick together with your group. Regular seats, you will need to find your own seat. 

After 1H 30 mins-ish, we arrived in Kyoto and walked our way to the hotel. My family and I decided to stay at traditional style hotel – it was not super traditional, but still got the essence of it. We stayed at Matsubaya Ryokan (8-10 mins walk from the train station, Central exit). Funny enough – one of the receptionists is Indonesian. 
Matsubaya Ryokan
When my sister did the reservation, I think she chose the 'suite' room – so we got one of the biggest room there. We have 2 rooms, 1 with twin beds, 1 with 3 tatami and a small desk and 4 muji style chairs for us to sit, snack, & drink tea, 1 bathroom (Japanese bathroom is quite interesting, they have this deep tub (deeper than your normal bath tub, that usually used by all family members to bathe in without changing the water –thats what my brother said), and 2 toilets (the best).

My sister said they have a room that accommodate up to 8 people! For me, I was really happy with our choice. It was no lavish 5 stars hotel, but it was clean, minimal, neat, and has 2 CLEAN toilets (thank God!). I really like it – no complains at all. Honestly I would stay there again. I really like the concept of this tatami, like sleeping on the floor.

One of the reasons why we decided to Kyoto is because of : I wanna be dressed in Kimono and shit, go to Fushimi Inari and run like Chiyo, and see the bamboo forest. But we only got one full day – we arrived around 4pm in Kyoto (we used Cathay, got delayed for 2 hours so...), so first day was pretty much looking for food, snacks (HOLLLAAA!!!), and udon dinner. 

Second day, I booked a Sweet Escape session to take a family picture of us in Kimono! Albert, our photographer is a student in Japan, helped us book the kimono rental place, which was located right across Starbucks in Gion. Travel tips: the rental fee starts around 7000yen for kimono (4000yen for yukata) - you can wear it all day long, can return it at 9PM at night.

I was torned between this floral pattern kimono and bird pattern – decided to wear this one because it blends well with the rest of kimonos that my family wore. Gave a little accent with pattern clashing for the obi. Brought my own Cult Gaia bag (such an 'it' bag of the summer – it's getting so OOC).


After 2 hours taking pictures, our hungry faces started to show. We decided to go back, change back to our clothes, and head back again to Gion

Why Gion again? When we went the first time to take our family pics, we didnt get the chance to really see around – so we walked around again, check out the Hermes pop up store, ate gold foil covered ice cream, and went to Fushimi Inari (will dedicate a post for this). We ended the day by eating at Katsukura – super good. Something like Katsusei in Plaza Senayan, only better. Travel tips: try to arrive early for dinner/lunch, eat there during weird hours, 11:30 for lunch, or 5:30 for dinner. The queue tends to get crazy! 

On the next day... we decided to leave for Tokyo early since my brother need to get to class. Will post more of Kyoto soon!

1 comment:

  1. Hi.. Do you mind to share a little bit where you rent your kimono and how to rent it? Thank youu

    ReplyDelete

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