So many times I’ve passed this ramen place near my house, there’s a line of twenty-plus people outside. The ramen is good, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not worth waiting more than ten or fifteen minutes for. And that is the intro to my guide to visiting Kyoto.
Don’t Go to Kinkakuji
A lot of times when people come to Kyoto, they see that something is a World Heritage Site and think, Oh that must be amazing. They don’t realize that a) half the city of Kyoto is somehow one big World Heritage Site and b) just because something in Japan is a World Heritage Site doesn’t mean it’s that interesting. Kinkakuji exemplifies this perhaps the best (worst) of all. In photos it looks really cool, but when you get there, you realize it’s actually really far away in the middle of a pond:
That’s not so bad, you might say to yourself. Except odds are you won’t be at the very edge of the pond, you’ll be even farther back looking at this:
Then there’s the location. Kyoto has some layout issues I’ll get into more later, but unlike most other cities in Japan, you want to optimize what you can do in a given area because getting around is a bit of a hassle. Kinkakuji is up in the northwest corner, a half-hour walk from anything else of interest to anyone except maybe some kind of history specialist. You basically have to take a bus or taxi there, and then take a bus or taxi out. A significant time investment—one that I think most people won’t find worthwhile.
In a similar vein, here are other things travel Youtubers or blogs or whatever might recommend that I think you’d rather skip:
- Kiyomizu Temple. As far as I know, the reason this place is famous is because of the scaffolded veranda. I’ve been a couple times, once for a light-up event at night, and in my opinion it’s just not worth the crowds. I think a lot of people will find it underwhelming even without crowds, similar to the issues I have with Kinkakuji—the zoomed-in photos are nicer than the distantly-viewed reality. The Ninenzaka/Sannenzaka/Gion/Higashiyama area leading up to the temple is really fun to wander around in though, so don’t skip those just because I think the temple is kinda mid.
- Eating on the Kamogawa. This option is probably a little challenging for most non-Japanese readers/speakers, but I thought it was worth a mention. Every time I’ve eaten on these veranda places along the Kamo River, the food has been very mid and overpriced. One or the other I would accept because the view is nice, but not both. I have gone to one of these kinds of places when hiking in the mountains though, and that was fun (though still expensive) because you’re right on top of the stream and you have more space to relax.
- This ramen place near my house I mentioned in the intro. If you happen to be in the area and there’s somehow no line, yeah it’s good. Kind of a non-traditional take on ramen. But there’s always some line and they had to introduce some kind of a ticket system. Skip.
- Chao chao gyoza. I’m pretty sure this is just a chain so idk how it became so popular. Tbh I don’t even know if I’d go out of my way for it even without a line, so it baffles me people wait in line for this.
The Charm of Kyoto
What do people really like about Kyoto? I think a lot of it is the ambiance—the way the city feels like it’s managed to preserve a piece of the past. And in my opinion most of that ambiance is best experienced wandering around the quieter parts of the city. Here are some places I love:
The view from Daimonji
It only takes half an hour (for me) to get from Ginkakuji to this spot. Around sunset is best, since it looks west. I’ve never seen it at sunrise though, so maybe that would be cool too—the sun at your back. Speaking of Ginkakuji:
Ginkakuji
Not to be confused with Kinkakuji (the gold one), Ginkakuji was in theory supposed to be covered in silver, but then that never happened so it’s just wood lol. The building itself is not so impressive, but there’s this little corridor leading into the complex that makes you feel like you’re entering something secret. The grounds themselves are also pretty, with a little rock garden and typical “Japanese” garden landscape, but what really sets this place apart in my opinion is wandering around the back loop. It’s quiet, peaceful, and has this cool observation spot.
The walk itself is not anything particularly special (I guess the sakura are nice in the spring, but there are other places as nice or better), but it connects several temples that aren’t as touristy, and thus can offer that Kyoto ambiance people love. For example, Honenin, Eikando, and Nanzenji are all along or near this walk and they’re all pretty cute in their own way. Plus there’s a lot of little cafes and whatnot so you can refuel your calories from all the walking.
The Area South of Heian Jingu
I don’t know what this area is actually called. Anyway Heian Jingu itself is kinda whatever, but the park just south of it sometimes has local events happening where shops will put up little stalls and stuff. Then as you go farther south past the museums and through the giant torii gate, you can either go along a cute covered shopping street just south of Higashiyama Station (the subway station), or if you tack farther west, you can go to Shorenin and Chionin, both of which are beautiful, quiet temples. Shorenin in particular I don’t think any tourist seeks out on purpose (I myself discovered it looking for a nice spot to see autumn foliage); Chionin is more famous because it has this absolutely majestic gate:
These kinds of gates really make you feel the Kyoto gravitas. There’s one near my old place I used to frequently walk on days off:
Bakeries
Kyoto is known within Japan as a bread place. Now my German friend will tell you there is hardly anything worth calling bread in the city, but for anyone looking for very light, fluffy pastries (savory or sweet), Kyoto is a town of many small delights. During the pandemic I started visiting a bakery about 700m (less than half a mile) from my house every Friday, and now I’m friends with the proprietor. These sorts of places are scattered throughout the city, but my feeling is that they’re centered around the area south of the imperial palace grounds. Anywhere you wander in the city, if you spot a little bakery, you might want to just poke your head in and see what they’ve got—if they haven’t sold everything yet.
Cafes
Kyoto is surprisingly a good town for coffee. I’m not really sure why within Japan Kyoto in particular turned out this way, but the story of coffee first arriving on Japanese shores is pretty funny. Dutch sailors were unable to light fires on their wooden ships, so they brewed makeshift coffee with air temperature water. When they arrived, Japanese people had never seen coffee brewed before, so they assumed that room temperature coffee brewing was how it was done, and named it “Dutch coffee”. (Sometimes it’s called 水出し/mizudashi coffee, and there might be another name I’m forgetting.) Centuries later, when the rest of the world learned how Japanese people were making coffee, they called it a Kyoto cold brew.
Ironically, Kyoto cold brews are pretty hard to find in Japan. They’re seen as kind of old-school, so you have a good bet of finding them in some of the old Showa-era kissaten cafes. Holly’s Cafe is a chain that is always brewing some. I’m not really amazed by the flavor or anything, but it is kind of cool and a simple task to accomplish while you’re out and about in Kyoto.
All that said—I think the pourovers throughout the city are great. You’re not going to find the variety of options you do in America, but the quality will be good no matter where you go. Espresso-based coffee (lattes, etc.) is also good. One thing to keep in mind though, if you’re visiting one of the smaller cafes, try to just be considerate of the limited space and keep your volume level moderate to low.
And you know what’s crazy? I haven’t even mentioned the tea. Hopefully someday I’ll learn and explore a bit more about the tea culture and have some recommendations for you.
Of course, there are other nice areas in Kyoto. Maybe someday I’ll highlight a few more. I think my overall recommendation is just to try to see fewer spots and instead build more time for wandering—you can get away from the crowds and have the kind of Kyoto experience you probably really wanted anyway.
Assorted Notes
Some more famous places you might want to skip
Here are a few more spots you might find when you research stuff to see and do in Kyoto:
- Nishiki Market. This is an old shopping street with a ton of little vendors. It’s downtown so the access is good, but in practice it’s just a bunch of tourists slowly shuffling through an alley barely wide enough for two lines of people. Several of the shops themselves are worth going to (my wife likes a sashimi spot here), if only there weren’t hundreds of people to squeeze past. I would go if you have time and you’re the kind of person who likes to just buy a bunch of random street food. The reason I don’t recommend it to everyone is not even about liking crowds or not, it’s about how impossible it is to move.
- Fushimi Inari. Aesthetically impressive. Crowded. I think mornings are supposed to be ok? I went during the pandemic once and it was surreal how empty it was. I will say that the area is pretty lively during the day because of the tourism, with lots of food stands and even some legit cafes. I recommend it if you don’t mind crowds.
- Arashiyama. This is an area I have mixed feelings about. It’s extremely out of the way within Kyoto, and there’s not much to actually do here other than check out more temples and touristy shops, and I guess see the monkeys. The bamboo path is often a disappointment. On the other hand, it’s a pleasant finale to my favorite hike in Kyoto (you take a bus up to Takao and basically just follow the river), and the river area itself is pretty. I have a good memory of biking down the river toward south Kyoto, although unfortunately there’s nothing really worth biking to in that direction.
- Nijo (Castle). I think if you are an expert in Japanese art or architecture you might like this place. The grounds are very underwhelming though.
- Kyoto Tower. You don’t need to go here.
- Kyoto Imperial Palace (Gosho). You don’t need to go here either.
Getting Around
(You can skip these next two paragraphs.)
Kyoto is pretty difficult to get around compared to the average Japanese city its size. There are two reasons for this, as far as I can tell. The first is the city’s restrictions on building height. In many areas you can’t build over 10m (33 ft) high—that’s about three stories. This makes Kyoto less vertical and therefore more horizontal than other Japanese cities, where high rise apartment buildings are much more common.
The second reason is more interesting. Back when the emperor used to live in Kyoto, there were significant restrictions on how large of a property you could build on, depending on your rank. Of course some of the nobility felt like they wanted to live a little larger, and so they built impressive structures around the official borders of the city (which by that time had become the right half of a former square). Plus, for a while Buddhist temples weren’t allowed inside the city proper either (except Toji and Saiji), so all those cool temples I mentioned earlier are also all around the edge of the modern city, outside the old city. Finally, soldiers weren’t really supposed to be in the capital space either, so they set up just outside as well. All that combined to make a kind of outer ring of the more interesting and less restricted building projects. Kinkakuji, Ginkakuji, even Gion and downtown Kawaramachi—all outside the old official capital space.
Anyway when you’re traveling within Kyoto, you’ll basically be on a bus or taxi, or you walk. You can bike (it’s my main form of transportation), but it’s not exactly fun—the streets really aren’t built for it, and it’s not clear to visitors which streets you’re allowed to bike on. The trains are mostly useful for getting in and out of Kyoto. The subway is kind of pointless.
Like pretty much every travel Japan channel will tell you, you should just use an IC card. It’ll work on the buses and trains (and a bunch of other things). You need one per person. It really doesn’t matter which one. You can charge them of course in the station, but you can also charge them in convenience stores. Sometimes people think, I should get a one-day pass and save money, which is a good thought but in practice is a waste of mental energy. The IC card is fine.
I should mention the bus system in Kyoto is not really a system as much as three different operators all running lines in the same place. You have
- the city of Kyoto, which is 市営 (city-operated),
- Kyoto Bus (京都バス), which you would think is city-operated but is just a company called Kyoto Bus lol, and
- Keihan Bus (京阪バス), which is the same company that does one of the train lines running into Kyoto. (By the way, when you use your IC card on a city-operated bus, you just tap it when you get off, but on the other two you have to tap it when you get on and when you get off.)
It is very easy to get confused as to which kind of bus you’re supposed to get on. I don’t actually know any easy way for a traveler to 100% get on the right one in an intersection like Shijo-Kawaramachi, where there’s like 10 different bus stops all labeled the same thing. Google Maps is pretty good at pinpointing the bus locations for the city bus (which is nice because it used to not even try; the dot would be in the middle of the intersection), but not as good for Kyoto Bus or Keihan Bus. Getting on the wrong bus is sort of a Kyoto rite of passage though.
Where to Stay
A lot of times people stay near Kyoto Station. I think people should stay at Kyoto Station if they’re planning to leave Kyoto in a couple days or less, since in that case the bullet train access is your top priority. But the longer you stay, the more I think you should stay farther north, maybe near the Karasuma-Shijo intersection downtown. Kyoto Station is not actually downtown—it’s farther south, and while there are a lot of bus lines there, they tend to be full of commuters and tourists. Actual downtown is pretty convenient and part of the fun of Japan is wandering around the cities late at night, knowing you’re perfectly safe.
The other option, if you want to spend a bunch of money and you don’t like to wander around the city all day, is to stay in a ryokan—an old-school Japanese inn. Typically a stay in a ryokan involves a fancy dinner in your room each night, so that’s why I say it’s good if you plan to stay in at night. Otherwise you’re sort of missing the experience. Typically ryokan are not very conveniently located, so it’s a bit of a commitment. My relatives loved it though.
I can’t think of other info a traveler to Kyoto might find helpful, but if you have a question not addressed here, feel free to message me. I hope more people can really experience what Kyoto can really be when you relax your schedule a little, trust your eyes, and get out into the city.
Ben Shimomura 