Day 5 : Fushimi Inari - Kyoto

Wearing mask because the wind was really cold!

Let's continue my Japan trip journey! Here is my 5th day in Japan. I decided to go to Kyoto for a day trip since it's not far from Osaka and there were some places that I had never been to before.

I and my parents took the JR Special Rapid Service Train from Shin-Osaka station to Kyoto Station. The fare was 560 yen one way. It's much cheaper than taking the shinkansen . The ride was about 25 minutes long. Only 10 mins difference with Shinkansen (the shinkansen's fare to Kyoto is 2600yen!)

The train's coach was quite old but it' super clean till there's not any single trash or even weird smell. You can tell that Japanese are very clean and tidy~~.

This was Kyoto Station. My first destination was Fushimi Inari. To go to Fushimi Inari, I had to change train and take the train to JR Inari Station. The station's exit gate was exactly right in front of the Fushimi Inari!

I had been wanting to visit this shrine ever since I saw people's posts on Instagram. The torii gates looked very gorgeous in my eyes. During my first visit to Japan in 2009, I also went to Kyoto, but only went to Kiyomizudera. So this time I skipped the places I had been to and explored new places ;)

Fushimi Inari Shrine (伏見稲荷大社, Fushimi Inari Taisha) is an important Shinto shrine in southern Kyoto. It is famous for its thousands of vermilion torii gates, which straddle a network of trails behind its main buildings. The trails lead into the wooded forest of the sacred Mount Inari, which stands at 233 meters and belongs to the shrine grounds. 

Fushimi Inari is the most important of several thousands of shrines dedicated to Inari, the Shinto god of rice. Foxes are thought to be Inari's messengers, resulting in many fox statues across the shrine grounds. Fushimi Inari Shrine has ancient origins, predating the capital's move to Kyoto in 794. (source)

• Seifuku Coat - bought in Shinsaibashi, Osaka 
• Plaid shirt worn inside - bought in Dongdaemun, Seoul
• Mustard wavy knitted sweater & Bruno hat c/o Her Spot
• Boots from Forever21 Japan
• Bag from ZARA
• Skirt from Stradivarius

In most of Japan's shrines, they provide this spot to wash your hand and drink water from it.

It's almost Christmas & New Year! I decided to buy this torii miniature to write my wishes and hang it there. Hopefully all of it will come true ^O^

You can also write your wishes and draw the fox's face on this fox card !

The map! There are sooo many torii gates, it might take 2-3 hours to complete all of it. Because our time was limited, we decided to stop in the middle and took our time to have lunch and try their yummy snacks there.

There's a street full of food stalls in Fushimi Inari. You can find crepes, sweets, takoyaki, okonomiyaki, yakisoba, taiyaki, dango, mochi, anddd maaany other kind of Japanese food.

Taiyaki! As usual, Japan's red beans are the best!!

Dango. My mom bought one but she said it tasted kinda bland.

Delicious mochi with fresh ichigo (strawberry) :)

And here's the most crowded food stall , Yakisoba. The queue was very long. The seller cooked a freaking HUGE portion at one time to serve his customers quickier. Even the okonomiyaki seller in front of him helped him to pack the cooked yakisoba... I recored a video of it.. Shall I upload it on my youtube? :)

The taste was delicious, but it's very different with chinese/indonesian's fried noodle. Our noodles usually has a strong sweet soy sauce flavor, but since yakisoba used a different kind of sauce, it had an unique flavor! You must try this when you go to Japan . In 2009 , I tried yakisoba for the first time in Mount Fuji :)

Okonomiyaki, which was fully covered with katsuobushi (bonito flakes).
I and my parents' tongue suit Japanese food very well, which made our tummy (and cheeks for me) got bigger and bigger day by day. lol. 

Thanks to the kind stranger who took this pic of us !

If you're wondering, the torii gates are donated by the visitors. The size of the gate will depend on how much money they donate. The more they donate, the bigger the gate will be! :)

Yay! So happy to tick off one of my wishlist to take photo inside the torii gates!

 *

I'll continue the 2nd part of my Kyoto trip soon! Next destination is GION. 

I decide not to post it in one time because there are just too many photos xP. See yaaa~~!

Day 1 - Ohayou Tokyo!

Arrived at NARITA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT! ^0^

Just like what I told you before on my previous post, this was our very first trip overseas (beside asean countries) that we visited without tour guide/ tour services/ packages. 

This trip is my parents' 3rd visit and my 2nd visit to Japan, but previously we always took tour services from Indonesia, where we were provided everything from visa, tickets, reservations.. So we only needed to sit nicely in the bus and they'd take us to the tourist attractions! 

It all started when I was randomly checking out cheap airplane tickets (in July) and found a great deal from Jakarta to Japan on Airasia's website. Then I told my parents about it. We loveee Japan very much at every visit we make, and we're also a big fan of the food there. This year, there are also so many news and tv shows about Japan's tourist attractions and at that time, we realized that there are still so many places that we haven't visited in Japan, and how we missed their authentic Japanese food / street food when we went there with tour guide (usually, Indonesian tour services will take us to chinese restaurants most of the time... lol). Moreover, we feel like we're always in a rush when going with tour, as we're supposed to visit maaaanny places in a short time. So, the shopping time and photo time are so limited!! 

At first they hesitated as none of us can speak Japanese and many Japanese can't speak English.

But I read many Indonesian bloggers' blogpost about their trip to Japan without tour guide, and it's not hard at all. I was really helped by myfunfoodiary's blogposts, and also Ashley's,  cominica's, stella lee's, and elle & jess' ! :)

WHAT I PREPARED BEFORE GOING TO JAPAN:

1. Bought airplane ticket (JKT-Narita(Tokyo) & Kansai(Osaka)-JKT) from Airasia.com (IDR 5,5mill/person)
2. Booked apartment in Tokyo (via airbnb.com) and hotel in Osaka (via agoda.com)
3. Booked pocket wifi . (very important to go around Japan to see the train schedules on hyperdia.com and also google map) from Global Advanced Comm
4. Making itinerary and completing documents for visa
5. Calculating the approximate cost of transportation while in Japan to decide whether I need a JR Pass or not

1. Learning about the train's tracks / maps, so the itinerary is neat and I won't overcost on transportation. I also make a draft document about what transportation I'd take from the airport to the apartment, from the nearest station from my apartment to go around tokyo, from Tokyo - Osaka, Osaka - Kyoto, till from the hotel to the airport . All of those routes can be found in hyperdia.com's website! They also include the fares, the time, and the tracks which are VERY useful.

We arrived on December 19th morning in Narita Airport, then we decided to take the Airport limousine bus where the ticket can be purchased in front of the arrival exit for around ¥3000 one way to Shibuya (cerulean tower tokyu hotel). The trip took about 2 hours.

BESTTTTT HOT CHOCO EVER!!! I drank this every morning since the vending machine in our apartment's lobby got this van houten. Hehe!

Japanese are VERY PUNCTUAL. I purchased my bus ticket for 9:05am departure at 9:03 (which means I only got 2 minutes left to hop onto the bus) , but then I 'lost' my phone and I and my parents had to get off the bus and looked for my phone, only to found out it's actually in my coat's pocket. LOL. My parents were quite pissed of how clumsy I was as their "private tour guide" on our first day in Japan, while we still got 5 days to go dealing with my clumsiness .
So, the bus left us but they said I may change the ticket for the next departure time for free!

Right after we arrived in Cerulean Tokyo Tower Hotel (which is the bus stop in Shibuya area), we asked the hotel's staff the way/route to Dogenzaka area (our apartment) since we still hadn't got our pocket wifi yet (it's delivered to our apartment).

• bruno hat c/o Her Spot
• coat from cloth inc
• sweater from bershka
• blue stripes shirt from stradivarius
• denim shorts from zara kids
• sunglasses from kate spade
• bag from michael kors
• creepers c/o @grinitty

We were surprised to see the momiji (autumn leaves)! I thought it's not available anymore in December. So we stopped to take a picture in front of the pretty tree!! #perksofnotgoingwithatourguide.

Damn soft pork belly cuts

While we were 'lost' looking for our apartment. My mom insisted to stop by this small restaurant because she said it smelled so good even from outside and we hadn't had our breakfast yet.
The staffs couldn't speak english but luckily we ordered the food through a vending machine (thank God I've read some infos about Japanese's vending machines in food stalls) and we just needed to press the number of the menu (there were food miniatures in front of this restaurant along with their numbers in the menu). Our meals were affordable! ¥480-500 with free ocha :)

This pork katsu with egg & onions were really good :9

I've calculated the whole transportation cost for our trip in Japan and we don't need a JR Pass. We decided to get ourselves a Suica card each. It's like a bca flazz card but we use it in JR train stations (for JR lines). We filled the card with some amount of money (¥2000) . Everytime we pass the gate, we just stick the card to the sensor and it'd read the station we get in, and stick again at the exit gate (and they'll charge you the fee automatically by cutting off the amount you have in your card. There are discounts too (for example. shibuya station to harajuku is ¥210, but after discount the fare is only ¥190) rather than purchasing a usual ticket one by one for every trip). 

This Suica card can only be used for JR lines . For metro/subway, you need to purchase Pasmo card (same function) . I didn't purchase Pasmo card since I didn't take many routes through metro/subway lines, so everytime I needed to take a subway/metro, I just bought a ticket at the ticket machines ;)

Good morning Shibuya!! Thank you so much to the police officer in front of Shibuya station who spoke English very well and showed us the way to our apartment, and also a very kind Japanese who also helped us although he couldn't speak english.. so both of us used the sign languages.. lol



Yay... we're getting close to our apartment!! Look at the pretty sky and sunlight :D

After we've arrived at our apartment, we took a moment to take a rest and change our clothes to wander around Shibuta till night!

There's a Lawson store in front of our apartment. I got myself a pocky and also a very yummy warm milk tea :9

The famous SHIBUYA109 Mall was very close to our apartment. There are so many famous brands like Snidel, Emoda, Liz Liza, Samantha Vega, and maaaany more. I and my mom went a lil bit crazy shopping at that mall. Even the shop assistans were very pretty and cute!! xD

Randomly visited a standing (yes... standing as it means there's not any chair / seat to sit on) sushi bar in Shibuya.. The sushi was good!!

I have an extraordinary tummy, so we went in to a Yoshinoya stall and I tried this pork belly rice which's not available in Indonesia.. Omg.. it's sooo yummyyyy!! Wish they could bring this menu to Indonesia T_T

If you're wondering, my dad took all pics of me and I took all pics without me in it :D. I brought my canon eos 600D and 50mm f1/8 lens. On the two last days on my trip, my dad bought a new cam from BIC Camera shibuya. It's Canon eos m2 and we used it to took our pics while we're in Osaka & Kyoto. All of the photos in this post were still taken by my iPhone  & EOS 600D! 

See you on next post!!
#verenleeinJAPAN