Kyoto, Japan – 2026

We took a bullet train to Kyoto. It took us two trains and a 25 minute drive to get there. For info, in Japan these trains leave every 90 seconds and boy are they on time. Not like VIA Rail here in Ontario………..they leave whenever they want lol But that is mostly because they rent the rails from CN or CP and so their trains have priority and sometimes, well a lot of times, VIA is delayed because of that. But…. moving on…..after we checked into our hotel we headed to Nijo Castle. This castle was built in 1603 as the home of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun of the Edo Period (1603-1868)

Shingo, our guide, took us on a walk through the Geisha District in Kyoto. I thought we would see actual Geishas but nope, nary a one was out and about. It was a very pleasant walk though and we still saw lots. We went to an outdoor mall area as well and it’s so interesting to see everything they have for sale.

  • Along the river and so many people were gathered there to listen to music, eat, drink
  • The Geisha Walk
  • Cat on a Fiddle?
  • Kyoto Brewery
  • Huge outdoor shopping mall
  • Our lunch
  • Famous Kobe Beef
  • Fish Sticks

One morning we got up at 5 and left at 530 to go visit the 10,000 shrines. It was probably an hour travel to get there and we wanted to beat the crowds because believe me, these places fill up with people fast. This was one of my favourite stops, I really enjoyed walking here. I thought they had a lot of dog statues but apparently they are foxes, called kitsune and they are the holy messengers of Inari, the Shinto god of rice, agriculture, and business prosperity. We also walked another path to see some rice paddies and learn all about rice and how they plant it and harvest it.

  • The foxes, called kitsune, are the holy messengers of Inari, the Shinto god of rice, agriculture, and business prosperity.
  • Clint on the walkway
  • This was such a beautiful and colourful walkway that went on for a very long time (4 kms)
  • There were a lot of fox statues and they were all wearing little red bibs
  • Rice paddies

Clint and I had almost a full day in Kyoto to ourselves so off we went. Here are some of the places we went to.

  • Random photo of their subway station, very clean
  • Same river from our evening walk but no people as it’s earlier in the day
  • They love their little dogs, all sorts of dog clothing stores and dog cafes
  • I just like weird stuff, I guess they are selling these clothes for humans?
  • Nope
  • Another nope
  • Hard pass
  • Lots of narrow alleys
  • They had lots of knife shops to purchase knives for the kitchen
  • Some of the alleys were so crowded
  • Clint at Stoneheads brewery
  • Cute taps
  • Interesting

After Kyoto, we were off to Mt Fuji but the weather did not cooperate for us !

26 thoughts on “Kyoto, Japan – 2026”

  1. Such a lovely culture! I agree on the Nope and Hard Pass on the food, guys. Sea Urchin? Yikes! The bullet train must have been very scary, going that fast on rails is not attractive to me. I have a lot of respect for the Japanese culture. ❤️

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    1. haha yes I can’t get past the eyes staring at me from some of the fish ! I thought it would be scarier than it was, but their trains are so nice inside, lots of room and the chairs are nice too. I respect their culture too John, some of the things are pretty amazing !

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  2. Great photos as usual Susan … I feel like an armchair traveler seeing your trips. The Food Workshop was different, as was the food. First, the fish standing on their heads in the ice … then all the different fish for sale, all a nope and hard pass for me too. I’ve never seen a sea urchin – unique to look at, not to eat though. Oh my, I like all the red that you walked through … very unique as was the fox with the red and the little red bibs. Your meal was quite large – that’s for one person? Did you master the chopsticks? Did they identify what was on your meal? I wouldn’t want them tucking in some odd fish items in your meal. I’ve read about how fast the bullet trains go … what a great way to travel from one spot to the next. On the last tour I took we had several train and bus rides on the itinerary and one of the people in our group had issues with being on either of them if she could see outside the window and things zipping by. So we had a nice group too and people would always have her sit on the inside aisles with others in window seats. I guess she should never ride the Bullet train then.

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    1. Yes they always told us what each dish held and yes that was for one person! We never finished, it was a lot but surprisingly, we both lost weight when we got home. We did do a lot of walking though, especially when we got to Indonesia. I don’t know how they eat those sea urchins, it looks like they have little quills like porcupines. I should google it, they must peel them or something. I didn’t look out the windows too often, they went so fast. At times, it could make you kind of nauseous !

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      1. I’m glad they clued you in what you were eating! I can see how you both lost weight, not only from walking so much, but the meals consisted of a lot of fish and rice. Their smaller fish you showed us looked like it was supposed to be “finger food” … sometimes it is good to try new things, especially in another country, but not everything. I couldn’t eat reindeer patties in Sweden – nope, we’re talking about Rudolph’s kin. In fact, all the women gave their portions to their husbands who had no qualms about eating them. 🙂

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      2. Yes I have to know what I’m eating lol We don’t, or very rarely, eat fish though. I do love salmon though. I could not have eaten reindeer patties. I have had, one time only, rabbit, bear, duck, moose, deer, ostrich but I just can’t eat those animals anymore. It probably seems silly, I know. I will eat chicken but I don’t photograph them so maybe that’s why!

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      3. My parents never liked fish, so we only had salmon patties or maybe tuna salad during Lent on Fridays. I’m sure in your travels you have tasted lots of unusual items. Of the list you named, I’ve only had duck – that was many years ago and because my father was German and growing up they had a goose or duck every year for Christmas dinner, he wanted it. I couldn’t eat it now though. Cooking duck and goose was messy – they were greasy – sometimes they would compromise and my mom would make Rock Cornish hens stuffed with wild rice instead – also messy. My father wanted the grease from the birds which he let harden, put it into a jar and put it on toast … my mom and I would not fight him for that. My boss had a friend, I think it was his CPA and every Fall the guy sponsored a wild game dinner for his friends/clients. I would see the menu which came with the invitation. I wasn’t envious of him going. 🙂

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      4. Our moms must’ve been alike. My mom always made a salmon loaf just in a casserole dish, but it would be just like patties only bigger lol and we always had a tuna casserole too or tuna salad on toast. If I try the same things today that my mom cooked, they just don’t taste the same. I am not an adventurous eater, I have had my moments but for the most part I just like to eat what I like. Clint will try different things, like when we were in Cambodia. He tried the spider and grasshopper and those wormy things. I forget what they were called. I couldn’t even watch him lol

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      5. My parents were more meat-and-potatoes meals, nothing gourmet or anything like that either. The salmon and tuna fish were mostly for Lent or Summertime if it was really hot and she made cold salads. It took me forever to convince her that we could buy potato salad or cole slaw and it didn’t need to be made from scratch. I said that and nothing I have ever made tastes the same either. I am not much of a cook anyway. Clint is brave. 🙂 A biology teacher I had in high school was a little odd and he brought in a box of chocolates and starting doing an impromptu oral quiz – the first student’s correct answer got to take a piece of chocolate. He never did that before and the kid who guessed it, I can picture him today. Richard Long took the biggest piece and it was a bug – I can’t remember what type of bug, but it was crunchy. He didn’t pop the whole thing in his mouth and chew it, so that made the look on his face all the more horrific when he looked inside the half-eaten chocolate. The teacher was laughing wildly – Richard ran out of the class and never lived it down.

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      6. Oh that poor kid, that would have been embarrassing. I don’t know if I would like to have a teacher do that to me or my kid, to be honest. Yes my parents were mostly meat and potatoes and vegetables too, but she did make tuna casserole and salmon loaf occasionally.
        She also made a lot of recipes that involve Campbell’s canned soup. We usually make our own soup in the winter. But we do have a company in Belleville called Sprague and they make soups so I will buy their soup

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      7. That was not fair to do this – the teacher should have warned him, then let him try it if he wanted. My mom used to make a lot of soups in the Winter. It was just the two of us so she’d make some, we’d have leftovers, then she would freeze the rest and make garlic breadsticks or something with the soup. Yum. I bought a lot of cookbooks from Amazon when I got the crockpot, but never tried any of them yet.

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      5. Strange, I can see it on your site. I appreciate you going through the trouble. I think you’ll enjoy the channel, given your love of travel, photography, history, and exploring. 👏🏻

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