Living a day in Kyoto!
Many friends and customers of ours have enjoyed our first article and have requested for us to continue sharing about our favourite places to explore in Japan, the next destination we would like to share about would be Kyoto!
Kyoto is the previous capital of Japan, and is one of the many cities in Japan with picturesque architecture – traditional Japanese settings, and with occasional contemporary brands seating within it such as Starbucks etc.
For people who have yet to fully experience Kyoto – this article is meant for you, so you can also experience Kyoto at its best!
First up before we start our day exploring Kyoto, it is important to get ourselves prepared, and to ensure that we are ready to start our day as though we are Japanese – that means beginning our skincare regime with Japanese products!
Our typical Japanese Skincare regime (especially when we are living in Kyoto), starts from:
Kyoto Komachi Matcha Beauty Face Wash, for a deep cleanse without drying our skin out
LIOVERITE Balance Control Essence
WHITE ICHIGO Organic Vitamin C Serum
RUHAKU Gettou UV, an organic sunscreen for face and body SPF50 + PA ++++, to keep our skin protected for the day – very important because the sunlight will be intense unless it is raining.
Last but not least, we need to equip ourselves with our mask and to clip on the E-Com Air Mask which forms a protective barrier against viruses when we start our exploration of Kyoto in complete style!
First stop for anyone exploring Kyoto for the first time would be visiting the famous Arashiyama Bamboo Grove.
This place is known to be highly therapeutic, and it is definitely a must-go place for the scenery as well as for folks who are into finding spots for shoots.
The pathways for walking that cut through the Arashiyama Bamboo Groves, which makes way for a nice walk, as well as beautiful landscape & outfit-of-the-day (OOTD), shoots.
Along with the occasional comfortable windy breeze, and the gentle sway of the Bamboo Groves, it definitely adds to the atmosphere of this tour. For friends who like to fully explore the secrets of the groves, we may also seek for a local Japanese guide well versed with our local language – which would help us fully appreciate the heritage within these woods.
After we are done with the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove, we can head over to the Arashiyama Ryokan area to fully soak into the vibes of this picturesque city.
Over here, for friends looking to slow down our pace of life – you will get what you seek when you visit the Ryokan area as the traditional Japanese architecture calms down our hurried lifestyle.
Kyoto being the ancient Japan’s capital with over 1000 years of heritage, we will get to see and fully soak in the deep culture by just taking our time to explore the Ryokan fully.
Apart from just taking a good walk and checking out the various food establishments within the Ryokan district, we can also unwind by checking out some of the private Onsen within these district area – so we will be able to completely relax & let down our hair.
Did you know that to be legally classified as an Onsen in Japan, the spring water within the Ryokan (Japanese Inn) must contain at least one of nineteen specific minerals and naturally be over 25 ºC, or 77 ºF – temperatures of more than 40 ºC are also quite common.
Photo by @stanleyokay
Right after we are touring and relaxing, it is time to visit the famous Fushimi Inari Taisha – which is one of the most important Shinto shrines located in the southern region of Kyoto. It is renowned for its vermillion torii gates (in the thousands), which forms a beautiful trail.
By visiting them around the hour of dusk, we will get to experience Fushimi Inari Taisha – slightly different from how most people would envision it, painting the setting of this iconic shrine with a peculiar mood.
Fushimi Inari as its name suggests, are built-in dedication to Inari, the Shinto God of Rice, and Kitsune (Fox) are believed to be Inari’s messengers. As such throughout this beautiful place, we will get to witness many fox statues built across the grounds.
This shrine is known to be ancient, and it is meant to mark the official move of Japan’s capital to Kyoto back in the year 794.
Photo by @stanleyokay
Apart from visiting the mountain trails, the shrine’s infrastructures are worth a close-up look – and in fact, the famous Shrine’s entrance (Romon Gate) was a generous donation in the year 1589 by the famous Japanese leader, Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Followed by which, we will trail into the Senbon Torii (thousands of torii gates), which are actually also made by donations from many individuals and business companies over the years too!
After all the exploring, we would recommend checking out some of the malls or just heading to some chill cafes/ restaurants nearby, such as the Vermillion café & expresso bar or even a traditional themed restaurant like Fushimi Inari Sando Chaya to end our day in style.
Once we are back in either our Ryokan or Kyoto Hotel, we can adopt some of these Japanese products to wash up and prep our skin for a good night rest and they are namely:
WHITE ICHIGO Organic Cleansing & Makeup Remover Cream to remove our sunblock and makeup (if we used any) as well as to deeply cleanse our skin of all the grime & dirt – this helps to prepare our skin for our night regime.While we wash up with our favourite body & hair wash, we can pamper our body with SASS Matcha & Sakura Body Scrub (comes in coffee flavour as well) which helps to deeply cleanse and exfoliate our body of impurities – while giving us a good pampering as well.
After we are done washing up, we can follow up with an effective night regime such as using the CORECO Night Repair serum, to enable our skin to rest fully & rejuvenate so that we are ready for another adventure the very next day – and look amazingly fresh.
If you are also one who would suffer from dry nose due to either weather conditions or the Air Conditioning in your Ryokan, we would recommend for you to check out an amazing Japanese BIEN Moisturising Oil for Dry Nose that can help you to combat the nasty symptoms that we get from dry nose issues – this would help us to rest better as well.
With all these preparations done, we are ready to rest up and finish our day in Kyoto with style & with a slice of an authentic Japanese’s lifestyle. Hopefully this article will help you in your planning, and let’s ready ourselves to visit Japan when the time comes!
This article is written by Bare Japan, and we are a Singaporean based online store created to bring authentic Japanese cosmetics to our customers wherever you may be based in.