When I was looking for accommodation, the prices of Kyoto Airbnbs was stupid. So I made the executive decision to stay in Osaka and we would just do day trips…seeing as the 2 cities are so close there really is no gap between them.

What we did

An earlyish start but nothing too crazy. It was also quite rainy. So we tried to plan our day with inside activities. We caught a train to Kyoto then decided we were hungry. We had found online the best ramen place in Kyoto’s ramen district. So we hopped on another train to the north and waited in the rain till the place opened. It was worth it. I’ll explain more later, but the pork ramen in particular was like a big warm hug.

We had heard there was a manga museum in Kyoto so we headed there. This was a great rainy day activity. We walked around the musuem, learnt lots… then sat down for a few hours to read the manga available for free. George read Attack on Titan 1 and 2 as well as Lupin III. I went through 1 to 3 of Seraph of the End. It was actually super nice. I need to finish that series now though!

We then spent a great deal of time in the shop and spent the most money on things than we had the entire trip! Unfortunately due to copyright, we weren’t able to take any pictures here.

By this time it was time to get food. We had heard about a fine dining place called Robin so went to check it out. It didn’t seem open…so we then found the best gyoza place in Kyoto. It had won the best gyoza 2 years running. We had to wait about half an hour to get in…but when we did…well… you’ll see soon. It was also happy hour and a pint was 100yen. Yup. I love this country.

From here, we headed back on the train to Osaka to go home. All up we walked 14,555 steps.

What we ate

Just look at this delicious ramen! The left is beef and the right is pork.

Now feast your eyes on all the dumplings we ate!

Yes, this is karagge. It was quite possibly the most tasty karagge we have ever had!

Shrimp and beef

Pork.

Mushroom.

Hot and spicy pork. These were my favourite.

Crab and shrimp long stick gyoza.

Also cucumber pickles.

Honestly, the best dumplings I have ever had.

What we bought

Our huge manga museum haul. We held back buying more.