Heading to Kyoto

After spending a couple of days in Osaka, we decided to take a trip to Kyoto. Kyoto is only about 20 minutes on Shinkansen from Shin-Osaka station. That makes it only about 50 minutes door to door from our hotel.

Platforms in Shin-Osaka are pretty big as well compared to where I live. Really like the train system here in Japan.

Shinkansen feels so nice too~

We also brought some bento with us.

These bentos are very yummy and they are so economical. For less than ¥400, you can have a really tasty lunch.

Let me backtrack and show you where we got the bento boxes from. There is this place called Gozen in Namba Walk that we walked by a few times during the past couple of days and we really wanted to try the bento boxes here.

They have all sorts of choices.

So many choices that it took me 5 minutes to be able to make up my mind.

These bento boxes are freshly made. I wish they have this here in Vancouver, too.

Anyway, it was not the easiest thing to take photos and enjoy the bento at the same time. But when I saw some red leaves, I got excited.

Even when it was only a little bit of red leaves…

It wasn’t long before we had to get off from the Shinkansen.

Here we go.

For a moment, I thought Kyoto is a lot quieter than Osaka.

Still the normal level of traffic here.

It is not until we got closer to the main entrances that we realize that it is a very busy station!

And that is for a very good reason!

Everyone wants to see the autumn leaves here in Kyoto! This information chart is found in the Tourist Information Centre in Kyoto Station. It shows how red the maple leaves are in each destination. I felt totally unprepared for all these ^^;

After getting some information sheets and pondering around a little bit, we decided to take a leap of faith and just head out to the bus station and see how we can find our way around Kyoto!

The bus loop is just outside of the Kyoto Station.

When you are new to a busy station, it feels extra large….

Once we are outside of the station, it wasn’t that difficult to find the proper bus, kind of….

We followed the signs and luckily an express bus was there waiting for us. Yup, we decided to head over to Kinkaku-ji (金閣寺) for a visit.

It was my first time in Kyoto, let alone taking buses in Kyoto! Anyway, it happens that you get in from near the back of the bus and you get off at the front of the bus at your destination. You pay when you get off. Thanks to my wife, we had the right amount of change for the bus fare. The bus ride was fine, we had to stand up as there were a lot of visitors that day. But it was a good way to see the city.