On our 3rd Day in Japan, we are still in Kyoto. We decided that it is finally time to visit Arashiyama bamboo forest while wearing Japanese kimono. We also noticed from various recommendations online that some people may choose to wear kimono at Nara park to take photos with the deer instead.
We googled and search for Kimono shop recommendation and found one. We realise that it is better to reserve kimono online as we were almost denied of renting them. It’s not a matter of having kimono available for rental in the store, but rather, it takes time for the staff to help you to wear the clothes. Ladies will take even more time as they need to do their hair including makeup. Hence the shop limited themselves to 3 or 4 customer per hour.
Ladies have fanciful Kimono, with options to top-up to get even more fanciful options.
Kimono for the guy are more plain. I think it is not even Kimono, but Yukata.
The kimono was around 7600 yen for the couple set.
This include a small tote bag for both of us, a pair of socks and simple hair-do for ladies.
We wore the Kimono and rode the expensive rickshaw. Our ride was around 9000 yen for a 30 min journey that starts near the train station and ends in the bamboo forest. The guy pulling our rickshaw would stop at various photo spot including the bamboo forest in in between to help us take a photo.
It was kind of a unique experience for us but I cannot stand the kind of attention I gather when the rickshaw travel pass a large group of people. 😳😳😳
When we visited the bamboo forest on feet subsequently, a few tourist also request to take photo with us.
We settled for toufu as our lunch. This was recommended by our rickshaw puller.
Most of the dishes consist of only toufu. I think arashiyama is famous for toufu?
Nevertheless, i think the food is average at best but a good experience to try authentic toufu dishes in Japan.
The crab stick selling in Arashiyama is consist of so much flour. It just look cool and we did not like the taste.
As we are leaving Arashiyama, we chanced upon this romantic train. However, the queue from Arashiyama is quite pack and most of the seats have been taken. For some reason, the train staff approached us and propose that we should use our JR pass to travel to the next stop and take the romantic train back to Arashiyama. The staff also help us to book the tickets with proper seats for the return trip.
We followed the advice of the staff and went to the next station. While walking on foot, there were amazing views of open farm and we ended up talking lots of photo.
There was surprisingly nothing romantic about the train. 😂😂😂 But it’s fun to take a train to chill after walking whole day. There was also staff who tries to take photo of rider and sells them for 2000 yen.
Also, it’s better to ride on the left side of the train as there are way more view compared to the right side.
After our train, we headed to Fushimi Inari. We read this post and went there at night.
How To Have The Best Experience At Fushimi Inari Shrine | You Could Travel
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We conclude that it us good to come at night if you do not like to take photos. It is harder to take photo but there are lesser people around, so you can chill and slowly climb the stairs. I am not sure if it is just us, but a portion of the stairs was cordoned off.
We settled for some random food and headed back to rest.
Life is Sinple 