Ōsaka and Kyoto with kids. Day 3: Kyoto

Quick Kyoto Travel Tips

Train Stations

Google Maps does a wonderful job now of helping you get from point A to B with local and accurate train, subway and bus schedules. Kyoto is built on a grid system, so the tendency is for train stations to be grouped in pairs just a block or so away from each other, with one station servicing the east-west direction, and the other going north-south. If you glance around a train station and can't find the route you expect, check your map and see if there's another station nearby. Chances are you're at the wrong one.

A note about buses

If you think there's a remote possibility you will use the bus system, show your best tourist manners and purchase a day pass for around 600 yen from a train station or ticket machine before you board the bus. You can purchase a one-way fare for about 300 yen (one price no matter where you go in the city), instead. Either way, you really want the pass or ticket before you get on the bus because the buses stay packed from beginning to end, and it's infinitely better to flash your day pass or one-way ticket at the bus driver than to have to search for exact change and hold everything up.

Important info about Fushimi Inari Taisha

The path is open all year, day and night. This is a huge tourist destination, so avoid the peak hours of 9:00 to 6:00 if you want to miss the crowds. There are bathrooms and vending machines along the path, but only the bathrooms at the trailhead will be open after dark. The bathrooms have running water but no soap or towels. Also note that there are two train stations near the shrines, so double-check your map to ensure you head to the correct one. It took us 2 hours to hike the full trail, and we passed under 2,629 torii (there are more, but we didn't walk every path).

Our Day in Kyoto (Nishiki Market, Fushimi Inari Taisha)

With Universal Studios out of the way, we were ready for our day in Kyoto. We all slept well in our comfortable Air B&B so we woke bright-eyed and ready to catch our train. A few days before our trip we decided to book a food tour in Kyoto's Nishiki Market. The tour's website heavily stressed how important it was to arrive at the meeting spot on time. I'm really glad we allowed extra time for travel because when we checked our schedule with Google Maps, we discovered significant delays on the line we needed to use. The app helped us find an alternate route and we made it to the meeting spot with mere minutes to spare.

Nishiki Market Food Tour

Our guide was Jennifer with Arigato Japan Food Tours, which we found through TripAdvisor. Our group was small, with just our family and two people from Australia. We learned later in the crowded market how nice it is to have a small group! Jennifer did a wonderful job of guiding us through the market, dropping interesting historical facts and interacting with the vendors on our behalf.

We started our tour at Nishiki Tenmangū, a Shinto shrine. Thanks to Jennifer we learned about Kyoto's famously soft water, accessible at this shrine from a tap behind the purification area. The water really is deliciously cool and sweet. Bring your own water bottle and fill it up!

Tenmangū shrine. Bow slightly, toss a coin, ring the bell, bow deeply twice, clap twice, bow once more.

Nishiki market is between 300 and 700 years old, depending upon how you calculate it. Many of the shops have original old elements to them, and many of the shops have been owned by the same family for generations.   

Nishiki market, with it's distinctive roof

Aside from a variety of foods (from fish to beans, pickles to honey), there are clothing stores, shoe shops, and a very famous knife shop called Aritsugu that even sells left-handed knives.

Aritsugu. High prices, but artisan quality.

We were treated to plenty of samples on our tour. Jennifer did a great job of alternating between food and drink, so just as we started to get thirsty we were handed a nice cup of something.

Roasted flavored soy beans. Matcha usually isn't our favorite flavor, but these were delicious!

As a break from noshing on samples, our tour also included some more substantial seafood fare.

Octopus stuffed with a quail egg

The adults on our tour were able to enjoy samples of traditional Japanese sake. Higher-end shops will mark their entrance with a cedar ball like this one. Jennifer explained that the ball is made at the same time as a fresh batch of sake. The ball is green to begin with, but gradually turns brown over the course of a year. Sake is best when fresh and doesn't age well, so this cedar ball indicates older sake, and a new batch is probably on the way.

Brown cedar ball = older sake

Japanese cuisine tends to go easy on the spices, until they don't. 7-spice powder is often used in soup dishes. Less commonly known is a spice blend called biribiri in Kyoto, or piripiri in other parts of Japan. Piripiri means "numb" and this special spice blend (made from the berry-sized sichuan pepper) has an unusual numbing quality to it. Some blends are much more spicy than others, and you can sample them here. The one in the green package is my favorite. At first it's rather citrusy, then it transitions to very salty, and then your tongue begins to tingle and go a little numb. It's great on eggs, and I like to use it in Thai dishes. 

Stop by this shop for some interesting spice adventures

Random fact: Kyoto has laws to keep its city looking traditional. Not only are there limits to building height, there are color laws to follow. You won't see neon in Kyoto. I don't just mean the lights and signs, either. Safety equipment also follows the more subdued color scheme.

Safety cones can't be too bright in Kyoto. Vermilion is as crazy as they're allowed to get. 

Our tour of the market came to a close, and after all that food, it was time to eat! Our guide took us to a traditional Japanese restaurant called Umenohana (plum blossom). Tofu is a specialty in Kyoto and we were about to find out why. It turns out that soft water is the most important element to good tofu, so if you have tried it before and hated it, come to Kyoto and try it again. It's smoother, sweeter, creamier, and just plain delicious.

The starter for our 7-course meal. A tofu square with sweet yuzu-miso sauce, and a mixed salad.

After our lovely lunch we were set free from the tour. We returned to the market to browse through everything more thoroughly, and to purchase some of the items that caught our eye on our first time through. All in all, it was an interesting place for our family to visit. Even with a picky eater ("I don't like fish!") and a member with dairy restrictions, we all still really enjoyed ourselves and saw and tasted some very interesting things.

I don't know who can afford to pay $200 for dried sea cucumber, but it's not us.

Fushimi Inari Taisha

This is a pretty famous spot in Japan. If you've ever seen what looked like a tunnel of vermilion gates, you've seen this place. There are a wealth of famous places around Kyoto to pick from, but this one is open 24 hours a day and that fit well in our schedule. Plus, our kids just love to go up. There's a lot of up here.

One of many buildings at the base of the hill.

The path up the mountain is long and full of stairs of uneven height. Naturally our kids loved it. There are side paths and some alternate routes available, so get your bearings at the handy maps placed at the junctions and near the bathrooms. Did I mention it's a long hike? More than once we came to a new map and it looked like the "You Are Here" dot hadn't moved at all!

My son's face after hiking for 15 minutes, and the dot hasn't moved.

Our family loves animals, so we were lucky to be hiking when they fed the temple cats for the day (right around 6:30 p.m. if you're hoping for the same experience). There was only one who would let us approach, but that's all that our kids needed to make their day. We played "spot the cats" the rest of the way up the hill.

Nice kitty!

There was a very nice view of the city at the mountain's midpoint. We didn't linger too long because there was more up to go!

Kyoto by night

Thankfully the path is lit at night, but from the outside. Every gate casts deep shadows on the stairs, so tread carefully. Unless you're a kid, in which case you jump and slide as much as possible to maximize the fun. And scare your parents. Pro tip: there is a part of the path where you have to go up in order to go down. There are signs posted saying, yes, this really is the right way, so it's not just you. Trust the signs to guide you. You will reach the bottom again. Promise.

Our kids pausing under gate 1,894, I think...