Blogs from Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan, Asia

Which country has the most Michelin-starred restaurants? The Michelin guide was founded in 1900 by brothers Andre and Edouard Michelin as a way to encourage drivers to take more road trips. It included maps and recommendations on where to sleep, fuel up, and eat. The hope was that it would encourage people to put more wear on their cars and thus buy more tires from their company. Today, restaurants covet Michelin stars. Even a single star is a tremendous honor as it denotes a quality restaurant. Excellent restaurants are awarded two stars, and the crème de la crème receive three-stars. Despite France's reputation for fine food and it being the home of the Michelin guide, France's 600 odd starred restaurants only put it in second place. The most Michelin star restaurants can actually be found in ... read more

By this point we have the trains down so none of that WHY DIDN'T you get off the train?! that was our stop!!nonsense! that we experienced getting to Hakone. Getting to Kyoto was easy breezy from Tokyo. We did a quick luggage drop at our hotel as we have also figured out that the check-in time in Japan IS THE CHECK-IN time and headed over to Nishiki market. Which can I say that I LOVE that the pasmo card I use for public transit works in a completley different city and that is freaking awesome. Anyhoo, I have never been a fan of street meat even when it comes nicely packaged as stall meat. So this market was cool, but I really only tried one thing and snagged a bag of cucumber kimchi at this spot ... read more

We spent 10 days in Kyoto. On our first day, we strolled around Nishiki market before checking into our ryokan (traditional Japanese accomodation). The sparse nature of the furnishings, the sumptuous Japanese dinner and breakfast the following morning and even a somewhat uncomfortable night’s sleep on futons on the tatami mats made for an experience not to be missed! On the second day, we moved to our hotel Hotel Mystays Kyoto Shijo, a bit out of the way but otherwise quite good. We spent the day exploring the Imperial Palace and its park on foot and later by bike. We also rode northwards along the river to explore Shimogamo-jinja temple and the Botanical Gardens. Wednesday was a hot day but we still did a leisurely and sometimes vertically challenging walk in the southern section of Higashimaya. ... read more

We were up early and after breakfast went down to meet our guide for the day, Hiroko Inaba. 'Hiro' had spent two years in Finchley, north London and Lesley and she swapped stories. Hiro said that she misses London. However, the friendship could have become rivalry when she said that her sons support Arsenal Football Club - great rivals to Lesley’s team Tottenham Hotspur. However, that was not the reason Hiro immediately told us that she changed our guided tour schedule. Rather it was that the Imperial Palace was closed because of the Aoi festival (see yesterday’s blog). But as we had at least seen part of the palace grounds already, we were happy to adopt Hiro's amended tour plan. We caught the local train to our first stop Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine. This is the ... read more

Off to Kyoto on the Shinkansen (Bullet) train passing Mount Fuji as we hurtle by - strangely given this is the land of technology it was a surprise there was no WiFi on the train. First full day in Kyoto we spent in the company of Fumo and Mari Ono - two old friends of Mie my brothers wife. They kindly took us to Arashiyama and the bamboo forest which we walked through towards the Tenryu-ji Temple. This was a sprawling Zen temple with one of the finest gardens in Kyoto and wonderful mountain views. Above there we went to another set of gardens this time developed by a Japanese samurai movie star from the silent era - Oh-kohchi Denjiro. As you had to pay to get in we left the crowds behind and it was ... read more