A Day Trip to Arashiyama, Kyoto, My first Cold Soba in Japan!

Back to Osaka trip post. We went to Arashiyama at Kyoto for a day trip. We took the train of course.


The views from the train ride.

Wikipedia:
Arashiyama is a district on the western outskirts of Kyoto, Japan. It also refers to the mountain across the ÅŒi River, which forms a backdrop to the district. Arashiyama is a nationally designated Historic Site and Place of Scenic Beauty.

Thanks to our Japanese friends who brought us here. I never know such place exists ;p Hehehe… Simply because I did not even do any research before going to Osaka hahaha!!

It’s so pretty! I’ll let the photos do most of the talking. It was summer 2018, it’s pretty hot! However, when we were there, it was overcast and it rained. The rain wasn’t heavy, just drizzling. This made the air even more humid.

Arashiyama has so many tourists! It’s summer, hence we didn’t bother to rent kimono, not even a yukata. It’s so hot even with my singlet and a skirt. I would have rent one if the weather was cooler.

Our first stop was the famous place for soba noodle in this district called Yoshimura (Japan, 〒616-8385 Kyoto, Ukyo Ward, Sagatenryuji Susukinobabacho, ３). The exterior doesn’t look like it’s a restaurant. You really need to do reservation, the queue is quite long! It’s located in the historical site where the Meiji period Nihonga painter, Manshu Kawamura, resided. You get to see awesome views and landscape here while dining.

The noodle in the photo is Ika Soba(Â¥1,278).

Left: Condiments for soba.

Right: This is where I had my very first cold soba in Japan. I love cold soba! I like my soba this way. Also, it’s my first time to learn that the soba water is meant to be drank with the sauce. Almost did a boo boo to pour the sauce away when my friend wanted to pour the soba water into my sauce cup. Something new learnt. Never in my life that Japanese restaurant in Malaysia served me that!! Hmm…

The photo above is my soba set(Arashiyama-Zen), it was one of the biggest set. It cost ¥1,482. It came with cold soba, rice topped with dried young sardine, buckwheat seed salad, and Kyoto pickles.

Left: The rice is from the Arashiyama-Zen set that I ordered, just want to show it up close. Noodle and rice in a set, that is so filling but not overwhelming because cold soba is quite refreshing and taste “clean”, it won’t burden your taste palette so you do not feel icky like as if you have too much of strong flavoured food.

Right: This should be Kyo-no Yasai Soba(Â¥1,278) if not mistaken.

Klook.com

We then walked around. There’s so many souvenir shops, ice cream shops, local produce shops, and eateries.

Beautiful views around. There’s countless shrines in this district too.

Tenryu-ji Temple which is ranked as the city’s five great Zen temples.

Left: A random eatery where the steam came out from the chimney caught my attention.

Roght: The famous Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. I didn’t take much photos here because too many people around.

There’s a shrine inside.

There’s so much to see but we didn’t have that much time. Before we called it a day, we bought ice cream! Many unique flavours but we opted for soymilk skin ‘yuba’ flavour(Â¥300), the cream coloured one is certainly not available elsewhere. It’s basically soymilk ice cream, very creamy and smooth, not too sweet too. I would love to try the bamboo and cherry blossoms but too bad I couldn’t eat that much! The ice cream is huge!

Before we called it a day… We went to Kimono Forest for a quick look. Love those fabric in the pillars which are made with fabric dyed using the traditional Kyo-Yuzen technique that can be seen on Yuzen Kimono in Kyoto. There’s around 600 pillars! Not many tourists here though because many people didn’t know about it. It’s very pretty at night when the pillars are light up but too bad we couldn’t stay till sun down unless we stay a night in Arashiyama. I would recommend you to at least stay a night or two here, it’s very different from the big city.

Man! The view is just breathtaking! I’m speechless! We just sat there at the river and enjoyed the view.

One last photo…

Stay tuned to see where we go next.