When my friend and I arrived in Japan, we spent one night in Tokyo. We woke up early the next day to take a shinkansen to Kyoto. What’s a shinkansen trip without an ekiben, hey? Ekibens are bento boxes that are sold at train stations or on trains!

Our initial goal was to find Ekibenya Matsuri since they’re known for a huge variety of ebikens to choose from. Unfortunately, we were totally lost lol! We probably walking around Tokyo Station for at least half an hour trying to find the place. It was my first Japanese train station to navigate and it was all a bit much. We ended up settling for a random shop that sold ekiben. It wasn’t until my friend went back to Japan that we realize Ekibenya Matsuri was past the gates for one of the JR platforms. So hot tip if you’re also confused!

The ekiben we got came with beef sukiyaki, egg, salmon, and salmon roe. It ended up being a pretty delicious one!

We had sent our luggages from our Tokyo hotel to the Kyoto hotel so we only had our backpacks. Since we weren’t able to check-in yet when we got to Kyoto, we had to go explore with our backpacks. It, unfortunately, got very heavy during our exploring lol!

In any case, can’t start off the day without a coffee to fight off the jetleg! We visited %ARABICA Arashiyama – one of the most aesthetically pleasing cafes.

% ARABICA Kyoto Arashiyama

3-47 Sagatenryuji Susukinobabacho, Ukyo Ward, Kyoto, 616-8385, Japan

It’s a coffee shop with all glass walls that overlook the Katsura River. The place is very popular. We were there when the line was a little shorter, but it was completely packed.

We had their Tokyo latte iced. It was delicious! So refreshing in the heat!

Our first location to check out was the Iwatayama Monkey Park!

For some background information, when my friend and I were planning our Japan trip, we wanted to check out the Jigokudani Monkey Park (Snow Monkey Park). We didn’t realize how hot it would be still in mid-September. Due to that, it would be too hot for the monkeys to be making an appearance at the onsens and we ended up removing that from our itinerary. Fortunately, I realized that Kyoto actually had a monkey park so I substituted it instead.

I did not do enough research! I am not new to hiking, but I didn’t realize it required a bit of a trek that day and it was rather brutal with our heavy backpack on in that heat and humidity! I’m usually only carrying a very light daypack with my necessities on hikes lol! I do recommend if you’re going to this park that you wear clothing that is either breathable workout clothes or something loose and flowy. I made the mistake of wearing a light grey tee. Although it was Uniqlo’s Airism line, the material was not very breathable and ALL my sweat showed. I was drenched lol!

There weren’t a ton of monkeys around. But there were definitely some around to see. If you want to feed them, it can only be done in a specific building (can see in video) through the protected windows. There are workers around that are watching to ensure everyone keeps a safe distance away from the monkeys and not feed them outside of the building.