Kyoto, Japan

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Halfway through our Japan trip, we had such a lovely time in Kyoto. It’s quite the darling of Japanese cities, as we enjoyed plenty of its historical attractions, food, shopping, and even some nature. Anchoring it all was our stay at the Ace Hotel Kyoto. Something about this West Coast American (from Portland) property in Japan struck the right note for us and it felt quite like a home away from home.

First dinner, a local ramen shop with just a tiny counter. Menya Yukou.

Home at the Ace Hotel Kyoto.

The Ace sits within a former telephone company hq, which has now been converted into a modern little shopping center with a beautiful green courtyard. There’s a Traveler’s Factory stationery shop right downstairs.

Our first lunch in Kyoto was at this very, very old soba shop. It has stood here, owned by the same family since 1465 when it was a confectionery shop. That’s five hundred sixty years ago. So hard to fathom, coming from America. We arrived early to be within the first seating, upstairs in the tatami room. Really lovely meal and a special experience!

Neighborhood wanderings.

Over in the Teramachi shopping area, another historic building, this one housing the traditional Kyukyodo stationery store.

The shrine of this shrine-street shopping area.

A walk along the Kamo river.

Matcha break at Maccha House.

Pontocho, an alley lined with night hangs and eats.

Found a tiny shop filled to the brim with chopsticks holders and selected a bunch of veggie chopstick holders to take home!

We had gyukatsu for the first time at Gyukatsu Motomura. It’s like tonkatsu but beef steak instead of pork, and they serve it rare for you to finish grilling on a hot stone at your table. Fun and delicious!

Japanese specialty shops! This one just sells mats and brushes of all kinds.

On the way home, I happened to see this nice little bag shop, and Alex had been considering getting a new backpack. Found the perfect one! Master-piece. Still love the backpack. It has everything he had been looking for!

Early morning wakeup to go see the bamboo forest at Arashiyama. This little purple train takes you to the town.

This whole town is usually overrun with tourists, but there are advantages to being here in the down season in January and also arriving early before the shops are even opened.

‘Forest’ is a bit of a misnomer as it’s more of a compact ‘woods,’ but it really is lovely to see all the bamboo in this little area. We really enjoyed seeing it so empty.

A surprise highlight was our walk through these temple gardens on the way out from the bamboo forest. Admission cost about $3 and was totally worth it.

A beautiful, tranquil discovery walk on this brisk winter morning.

Ah, so here is where all of us millenials who watch the same youtube videos and read the same articles all are… at % Arabica overlooking the river.

Trying the mochi dango of the area with a lovely cafe break at eXcafe.

You grill the little mochi on skewers over charcoal. Very fun.

Next, we returned to central Kyoto for a visit to Nijo Castle, the Kyoto residence of the Tokugawa shoguns.

We toured the inside of the castle, with many beautiful recreations of the painted screens for each of the rooms within. No photos allowed indoors.

Just as we came back outside and started to walk the expansive grounds, it began snowing!

Let it snow! So magical.

Back in our hotel courtyard. Lunch at a simple izakaya spot.

Alex’s coffee stop at Weekenders Coffee. Just a tiny kiosk at the back of a parking lot.

Nishiki Market. A bustling food market filled with tasty stalls.

Tempura crab legs, uni on skewers, a giant ichigo daifuku, and I found a little shop with what I thought were rice bowls but discovered when we got back home the bowls are kind of tiny, so they’re now my ice cream bowls.

Shibire piriri vegan sansho pepper noodles.

A very bougie grocery store. Expensive grapes ($13+ for this small pack). Giant turnips!

Morning snow flurries in the courtyard! It didn’t stay for long, but it was fun to see.

Final Kyoto morning. Stopping in a bookstore, I found a very aesthetic Taiwanese cookbook in Japanese (admired but didn’t buy it). Then we had lunch at a Kyoto-style lunch spot with lots of little homestyle dishes.

One final tourist spot to visit: Kinkakuji, or the golden temple.

Very golden, as promised!

And just like that, we were off to the next city!

Side note, we highly recommend the Ta-Q-Bin luggage delivery service. For about $20 we sent two of our big luggage pieces from our Kyoto hotel straight to Tokyo while we stopped in Nagoya for a night. It does require a day or two of planning ahead, but it arrived perfectly set up in our Tokyo hotel by the time we checked in, and we didn’t have to schlep it along the way!

Anna Wu is a wedding and portrait photographer based in San Francisco. She compulsively documents and blogs all of her daily adventures. Follow her on instagram and view more of her professional work at annawu.com.


Taiwan & Japan, 2025

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