Japan day 4 – Kyoto

Have you ever been to Japan during the summer? No? Let me tell you: it’s hot.

Where we come from, we’re used to temperatures being around 40ish degrees Celsius, so it’s not so much that it’s hot – it’s the humidity! It makes everything worse.

On our second day in Kyoto we enjoyed sleeping in for a bit and then headed for an early lunch at a popular soba place. We got there right on time because two minutes after there was a huge line (out in the sun! No, thank you!).

We soon understood why the place was popular. Amazing soba noodles with scrumptious veggies. And there’s nothing that tastes better on a hot day than some cold noodles.

We then walked to a hotel we had seen somewhere (in a YouTube video) that had some really cool shops and stayed there for a bit to shield ourselves for the heat and have some coffee.

We then walked around aimlessly through the streets of Kyoto, just strolling.

We went back home to rest and walked out feeling refreshed after a shower, in the evening, as the sun was setting. The sky looked amazing.

We had dinner with our friend Atsuko, who runs Camellia. The dinner was a kaiseki kind of meal, where food just doesn’t stop showing up. It was fantastic! We had no clue what we were in for, and after the first couple of minutes we got lost in conversation and I ended up not taking pictures to the food! We discussed how Atsuko had previously gone to that place, pre covid, and any west foreigner would be a rarity. Now, it was the other way round. She was the rare one! We could barely hear a word of Japanese around us. In a sense, it’s a good thing, but I also fear that Japan looses itself to it.

If I think about the soba place from this day, yeah, it was amazing that we had instructions, but I know that a few years ago, there were no English instructions anywhere. That was something very noticeable, especially in Kyoto. I remember, back in 2013, we went by this really cool looking place that had a sign at the door saying “only Japanese, no English” or something of the sort. This may sound discriminatory, but you have to understand the whole culture behind it: they want to welcome you the best they can, if they can’t speak English, they know they will not provide you with the best, so they rather not even try.

So in a way I’m glad Japan is more out there and is more tourist friendly, but I honestly hope it doesn’t loose what makes it special and unique.