The Side of Kyoto, Japan You Don’t Expect…

The Side of Kyoto, Japan You Don’t Expect…

This is what we were waiting for. One of the best dishes that we’ve had in Japan, for sure. Here’s a shrine. [Music] Right by the river. How beautiful. 7:00 a.m. We’re supposed to be doing a boat tour today. It’s an hour away. So, we’ll see how that goes. It’s about to be very hot and very sticky. [Laughter] We’re going to get some breakfast and I’ll probably get back to you then. I don’t know why 7:00 in the morning, I have so much energy. I came up this morning singing hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog. Y’all, I cannot find deodorant anywhere. I’m on this last thread. I got the other. Oh my god. You so am I. Oh, thank you. Well, I’m currently already dug into it. Do y’all see this? Get a little girl. Are you using a Q-tip and wiping under your eyes? Yes. This is This is Oh, this is going viral. I’ve personally never understood how some people cannot eat in the morning. When I wake up, I feel like I need to eat. With that being said, we’re going to McDonald’s. Let me know y’all’s go-to McDonald’s meal. I don’t like the egg McMuffin because it’s too like it’s too bready. Does that make sense? I know. I hate It’s so like it’s so much muffin. So, we’ll see what they have for breakfast. Um going to need a coffee for sure. Very early, very hot. Like I said, we’re supposed to be going on a boat today. We have no idea what’s going to be done on this boat. We don’t even know if we’re getting lunch. No. No, we don’t. We don’t get lunch. Unfortunately, we don’t get lunch. How long is this excursion? Two hours. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be fun. Hopefully, Tik Tok influence me. I don’t know. But regardless, I’m going to have a good time because my friends be in nature. Yeah. So, we found this excursion on TikTok or our friend did. So, we’ll see. So, we’ve been waking up late every day, me and Crystal. And our friends, Jen and Daniel, have been waking up earlier than us, and they were talking about how we weren’t going to be ready last night. And look at us ready. Oh, we were just talking in the in the lobby, and we waiting on them. Oh. Oh, that’s what y’all wanted. That’s why This is the Japan menu. This is teriyak and this is shrimp. What country got the best McDonald’s? Let me know in the comments. All right, so we have McDonald’s. We’re currently catching our trains to go to our excursion. I don’t know why, but this black floor kind of makes this place look pretty cool, man. And the subway station is now. I’ll probably catch you when we’re on the side of town that we need to be. All right, so we just got to the station where we need to be. Jyn and Daniel left our ticket in the other train station and Crystal is handling some business. So, we’re probably not going to make our tour. I guess Crystal went to the restroom. So, we going to be late. Y’all, we are out here and this looks so much. Wow. Looks like a baseball stadium right here. This looks so dope. All the mountains. I definitely like the mountainous areas. Coming from Houston, everything is so flat. So to get like some some terrain or topology, I guess. Mountains, man. Wonder what type of animals they have out here. Very dope. We’re late for our excursion by a couple minutes. I don’t know if it’s a boat full of people or just us, but I think we got left. But we’ll see. We made it to the boat ride. We got It was a little experience where, you know, no conveniency and all, but we got really lucky. We got to come waiting for our bus take us on the river for 2 hours. [Music] Straight heat, man. It’s very beautiful out here. It’s still cooler than what it would be in the city. So, especially when we’re by the water, I think it’s like a nice breeze. We got to see some fishies. But perfect lighting on the mountain side. I’m very just looking forward to it. Like 86 degrees feels like 90. Very hot. But we’ll see. We’re right through these gates. [Music] And this is the river we’re going to be on for two hours. the Hugawa River. All right, so it’s finally time to get on our boat. Okay. [Music] We got really busy. [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I’m very happy to be doing this. [Music] All right. So, this boat ride is 2 hours. Let me know which job y’all rather do. before. Guys, if y’all fly fish, tell me it this does not look like a perfect spot. It’s like a This has to be like 2, three feet tall. And I know it’s fishing here, man. Look at this scenery, too. Seems like the perfect fly fishing spot. Oh, wow. Look at the horse. All right, Daniel. Tonight, me and you look a fly fishing excursion. We’ll find one. It’s going to be the best excursion we do in Japan. Yeah, for sure. All right. So, I don’t think this is a natural river. I think it’s man-made. I can see they’re excavating something, but nonetheless, doesn’t make any less beautiful, man. Here’s a shrine. [Music] Right by the river. How beautiful. Oh, there you go. [Music] [Music] ft over 124 meters. 124 meters. That’s a mountain. Perfect fishing spot right here. Perfect fishing spot. Mini waterfall. Mini waterfall. [Music] Here, [Music] they’re recording. Recording. [Music] Come on. [Music] Ra. [Music] They’re showing off. I know, right? [Music] That sound like a driver. [Music] $10. [Music] [Music] Bunch of Yeah. So is wild. Oh, sorry. Do you know clear some of this stuff out? Oh, sorry. Sorry. [Music] Y’all, so I was just putting on my sunglasses on my hat and it made me think of a story. When I was younger playing baseball, when I was like 13, I went to the pool before a baseball game. And you know how when you get four in your eyes, it makes everything blurry. Long story short, I did not do well in that baseball game. That’s when I knew I didn’t want it bad enough. [Music] Here’s the river market. [Music] Okay. It smells like barbecue. It’s mochi. It’s like rice and it’s true. All right. All right, guys. [Music] Salt coating in something like chewy rice. It’s actually quite good. I feel like this could be an appetizer at some restaurants. Okay. This is like a six and a half, seven out of 10. This is very good. Mhm. Got some in my face. Very good. Now she’s eating squid. You know, I went squid fishing. All right. If you’re looking for seafood and savory, this is your go-to, the squid. I give this cuz it’s really chewy. Has this glaze on it. A very strong seafood scent. Um, but this is six out of 10. It’s very salty. Very, very salty actually. Six out of 10. Right there. I know, right? So good. You give that one. This, if you want some sweetness and a softer texture, also very chewy. Yeah, this a seven out of 10. Seven out of 10. This B is really good. It’s not a carp. That’s a catfish. Look at that. Bang. We do recommend this. Was this a what? What is the rating? 10 out of 10 recommend? 8 out of 10? 1010 if you’re a nature person. 1010. 1010 if you’re a nature person. All right. So, we obviously just got done with this scenic boat tour. Now we are headed to the bamboo forest which isn’t that far. We’re going to take a bus. Hopefully it’s nice and shaded. But man, that boat ride was totally worth it. I’ll drop the price below of how much it was. Look at this nice little car. That reminds me of the Italian car from Mission Impossible. So, funny story. When we went to go and see the second to last Mission Impossible, which is the Rogue Nation, where Tom Cruz was like f fighting this AI bot. I booked the tickets online. The tickets were like 60 bucks. I hadn’t been to the movie theater in years. So, I was like, “Oh, maybe just inflation has caused these prices to go up on movie tickets.” So the day of the I had booked it um booked it like a couple days before the movie had came out or Yeah. So we go to the movie theater and I see a poster that says it’s coming out 2 days from the day we were actually there. So I was like, “Oh, well that’s why it was so much because I booked like an early release.” So it was showing early. So, we go in, we get into the theater, and it’s like these stadium seats, like weird seats, not you like not the recliner seats that you’re used to. And then when the movie starts, the movie starts with them in like the submarine. And the seats like starts like moving and coming up like elevating and moving around and stuff. Turns out it was a 4DX movie, which is when the when the movie when the when the seats like move around and there’s like wind in the theater and all these flashes and stuff. If you’ve never seen a 40X movie, definitely worth checking it out. But yeah, look at that, man. Just beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous. After a short bus ride, I think we’ve made it to the bamboo forest. Fun fact, bamboo grows extremely fast. I’ll look up how fast it grows and put it down below, but it is astonishing. When I think of bamboo, I think of pandas a lot. And actually, pandas are not built to be able to digest um bamboo. They miss they eat so much bamboo and it just kind of runs right through little shaded area. Amazing. Astonishing praying mantis. You got to put your hand next to it. That way they know that it’s about as my hand. Wow. Bra mantis. Imagine if those things were the size of dogs. Size of dogs. Do y’all have for pictures when you go on vacation? Let me know. I don’t know where that’s for. This is what we are waiting for to avoid the power lines in your photo. Oh, so that’s cool. So, you have to pay to go in the temple, but this forest walkway is still free. as it should be. It’s a nature site. As always, please leave the place better than you found it. It looks pristine and beautiful. Make sure keep your trash in your pocket. Most of our property, but we want to preserve places, okay? We don’t want to be bad tourists when they take us out and not let us see beautiful nature like this. Pretty decent incline. I would say about 20%. I did not see that coming. Oh, look at you like on your C. I’m wondering how how they maintain all of this. I think bamboo grows like weeds. Yeah. Very very invasive. So it’s like how do they manage to look at the dirt? That is a that is definitely an incline because you have she just out of shape. That’s it. Are you still huffing and My backpack singers do dancing. I heard playing instrument and dancing is one of the hardest things or singing is one of the hardest things to do. Huh? I’m so sure. I found a perfect picture of the spot. Feel like it’s all picture worthy. This This reminds me of like a car commercial for some reason. You took a picture for me and Josh. Here’s the observation deck. We were just here. You just got to walk a little bit past the bamboo forest. This forest has a lot of paths for you to go to, which I did not know. And this this is well worth exploring the nature um aspect of Kyoto right next to the bamboo forest. I’m smelling this very distinct bamboo smell. All right, this is what I’m assuming. bamboo smells like. There’s definitely a scent. We just walked from the outside path to now. Right. Do you Is there a scent? Uh, it’s probably just people when people are spraying their um stay cool. Decided to get some food after the bamboo forest. This is what the menu looks like. I am excited. I got the uda noodles or beef. Here’s the beef udon set. They both got a set which has tofu, rice, and some pickled veggies. And we got chicken. Chicken what? What did you get? Tempura. chicken tempura at this udon restaurant right right out of the street from the bamboo forest. These udon noodles are very different from what I’m used to. I’m wondering what type of starch they use cuz I’m used to rice starch. This is very thick. This is delicious. The broth is really good, too. [Music] I haven’t tried my duck yet. And these are like square cut noodles. Let me try my duck and give a rating. [Music] Seven out of 10. This is definitely a go-to spot if you’re really hungry coming out of the bamboo forest. [Music] I can’t compare this to any of the other udons that I never had any other udons in Japan, so can’t compare it. But I would recommend this place to eat. We’re hungry. How is y’all’s food? We got beef and chicken on the menu. Pretty good. Seven out of 10. All right. Seven out of 10. So, would recommend this restaurant. Yeah. I was a little nervous cuz it’s like, yeah, it’s a touristy spot, but definitely worth checking out. [Music] We almost tried to just make it home, but we couldn’t make it home on an empty stomach. So, I’m glad we found this spot. All righty, we are headed to a bus stop. It’s going to be about 37 minute bus ride back to our place, which is half the price of taking the train. But that’s because what I’ve noticed in Wait, what I’ve noticed in some of the buses in Japan is that they’ll just charge you one like a set price. So, so then you don’t have to scan on and off. You just scan right at the end. You’re going to go on the side. You’re you enter the side of the bus and then you pay when you get off at the driver’s spot. Yeah. The only time we had to scan on and off was in Indoshima or uh in Kamakura, but in Tokyo and same now in Kyoto, you pay a set price. So, we’re going to stay on that bus for 230 yen. After such an early morning start, we decided to take a team nap. And now we’re going to that curry place that one of you guys recommended. So hopefully it’s good. The time is currently 8:30. So we slept for about 4 or 5 hours. So tonight might be eventful. We’ll see what we get into. We’ll see. We’re here. So excited to try it. And I didn’t realize they have delivery. So this is really cool. Let’s try it. Looks really a hefty meal. All right, so we’re going to do order on the iPad. I’ve been struggling to find the dish that I want, but we got it now. I’m debating between the chicken or the pork cutlets. We did have pork cutlets yesterday, but then I’m like, it seems like pork is the sauce that they’re using. They have a pork sauce primarily and then you get to upgrade it to beef sauce. Or there was another option too or a veggie sauce. Should I just try chicken so that it’s crispy chicken? So we have a lot of pork. All right. So just sticking to the basics since they use pork as their base. I just did the pork cutlets because chicken cutlets are also only up until September 1st. I don’t want the seasonal menu right now. I’m going to just try their like main one and then So, we kept it simple, but we did add some soft egg and Yeah. You just order it. Does everybody eat bread? Yes. But there’s a lot of options. So, you can add squid. You can have all types of seaw um you can have oysters or squid or shrimp. So, seafood options and then veggies. This place is cool. You have a lot of options, a lot of variety. But yeah, I just kept it really simple. I just got veggies with my curry. Let’s see how it goes. Y’all, I can tell you right now, the aroma is smells really, really good. Aromatics definitely got me. Okay, this what it looks like. Yes, we got to do curb appeal first. looks. I would give this a eight and a half. Well, mine eight and a half out of 10. I got the egg, but you got the vegetables up. So, it a little egg. That’s what I wanted. I wanted that soft egg. The scrambled eggs. Yeah. Oh, that’s not even an egg. You got What about I don’t know what I have now, but what about you then? What did you get? I got the the one in front of the menu. Is that chicken? The chicken cutlet. Is this pork? Yes. Chicken garlic curry. Um, it smells really good. All right. Oh my god. My veggies. Oh my god. Here you go. You can first bite here. Record because I have to eat first. Oh, hold on. Hold on. Your first bite weren’t the main dish. butterfly. I wanted to know what that was cuz I wanted I wanted the soft egg. Yo, I see why this place is popular without sauce. Really crunchy. Good. Oh, this curry is good. Who recommended this place? I got it spicy. Let me find you in the comments real quick. One of our viewers. Thank you so much for recommending this place cuz we It was not even on our radar. We really appreciate you. I do recommend. Um Oh, I got a spicy. This is good. This is one spice. So, like the best thing I have to compare this with is Vietnamese coconut curry. Now, it’s like coconut based and you have the bay leaves. I do sense the bay leaves in here. Let me get the rice. Oh, this is good. This is good. And and you can you can add or subtract so many things. cuz there’s so many options. Like, I didn’t even realize how many options there could be to to add things. So, anything that you like, but the this pork base, it hits you. So, if you haven’t tried it yet, we we recommend you try it. Y’all, this is probably I would say top three curry I’ve tasted. This is very high quality stuff right here. I’m gonna give this a nine out of 10. We highly recommend. She says nine out of 10. And now we haven’t even tried the beef yet. What are you giving it? Can you give it a mic? I think I’d give it um a 9 out of 10. Honestly, I don’t eat spice that much. So, the fact that I got the mild it and it’s still flavorful and I’m not too spiced out either, but it’s really good. Nine out of 10 across the board. Mhm. Very rare on CJ Voyages. No, I got chicken. That doesn’t look like mine. Yeah, that looks just like yours. Okay, so I was wrong. I accidentally got the chicken. I highly recommend the chicken. I like the chicken more than I like the pork. Damn. Yeah. Right. Right. He’s gone. He just tried the chicken. Right. More flavor. Better flavor. You whatever you prefer. Mhm. All these are brands. Oops. I just prefer the I’m just preferring the chicken more cuz it’s so crunchy. It’s um it’s their handmade chicken cutlet curry. Yeah. Oh, now I’m excited to try what the beef sauce would be like. This is good. This is good. I am so surprised because I am spiced out. I only got one spice, too. I was Okay, so I only chose one, right? But I was like cuz like just in case it ends up being hotter than it would be. But Japanese food is typically not spicy. You have to add stuff. So I was like, “Okay, it’s not going to be it probably won’t be too bad.” So be careful with the spice level here. And I say this because like like for instance, Thai food. If you’re getting Thai spice, bro, it is like spicy. So you already kind of know that coming. But I am s pleasantly surprised about the spice level for this curry. Um, even after just getting one chili, I’m like, it’s spicy. This is the best food you had in Japan. Meals have we had this is one of the best dishes that we’ve had in Japan for sure. One of them. Not the best. No. Um, cuz we’ve had cuz this is in the curry sector. Yeah. I really enjoyed this meal. Um, very well executed. What was the price? Okay, for three people, right? And we added some stuff, but let’s see. For three people, it’s 4,155 and we are full. We’re like debating on taking food home. So, around 10 USD. No, 4,000 honey. All right. Three. Oh, per person. Yeah. Yeah. Um, all right y’all. So, we had the curry. It was delicious. And now we’re about to go and play pool. I’m taking us to the train. But look, we need a bus, [Music] but it’s pretty lively tonight. I guess there’s that one over there. I’m trying to figure out where our fourth is. We’re about to go and play pool. All right. So, we just made it to the place where we’re going to where I’m going to win some pool games. Oh, that’s what I was going to say. I’m going to come and collect like I did yesterday. Me and Jen about to whip the boys. 250. I don’t like how she likes to promote propaganda on my platform. Straight lies. We won yesterday. It’s going to be We won too. It was one to one. Well, it’s going to be a three to one today cuz y’all are going to take all L’s. We’ll see. All right. His kryptonite. I was going to be like, look, is this his kryptonite? It’s so addicting. Oh, these are cute. [Applause] I want to snack you. Isn’t that all the same stuff in this store? Yeah, I didn’t even see this though. That wasn’t an option. All right, let’s It was upstairs. Let me give y’all a summary how this game is going right here. [Music] Get that out of her face. Game on the line, y’all. Let’s see what she do. No. That’s hard. That’s a hard [Music] Ain’t no way. [Music] Ain’t no way. Marvels again. [Applause] [Music] Comes down to this. [Music] Come on. Walk it. Walk it. Walk it. Walk it. Walk it. right there. [Music] [Music] It’s our last game. Game number nine. Game on the line. Game number nine. Let’s see what she can do. [Music] Thank you very much. You do the honor, please. [Music] [Music] I don’t know what was so funny that last one. I had a twitch in my leg. Let’s see what you do that. [Music] Here we go. Easy shots right here. [Music] And your teammate’s back must be hurting. [Music] That’s all right. Intense game. She going to go for the smart shot or the easy shot. [Music] Don’t tell my teammate she don’t miss healing shots. What pocket? Point a pocket for all the marles. [Music] All of a sudden, look at that. All of a sudden, that’s right. Take your L. [Music] Shannon of CJ Voyage is here. [Music] Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and comment down below. Peace. Later, y’all. GG’s. GG’s. I know.

Kyoto travel vlog: Hozugawa River boat tour, Arashiyama Bamboo Forest, Japanese curry & more adventures in Japan. We spent the day exploring Kyoto in ways we never expected. 🌿 From drifting along the peaceful Hozugawa River, to wandering the world-famous Arashiyama Bamboo Forest, to finding some of the best Japanese curry we’ve ever tasted — the day ended with an intense late-night pool match that had us on the edge of our seats.

This was one of those travel days that surprised us at every turn — and it showed us a side of Kyoto we’ll never forget.

📍 What you’ll see in this vlog:

A scenic Hozugawa River boat tour 🚤
The magical Arashiyama Bamboo Forest 🎋
Hidden spots for incredible Japanese curry 🍛
A competitive game of pool that got way too serious 🎱

If you’re planning to visit Kyoto or just love travel adventures, this video will give you a glimpse of what makes Japan so unforgettable.

📍Follow our journey on:
→ Instagram: @CJ_voyages
→ TikTok: @CJvoyages
→ Subscribe and hit the bell for more travel videos!

#Kyoto #JapanVlog #TravelVlog #Arashiyama #KyotoTravel #HozugawaRiver #BackpackingJapan #BananaPancakeTrail #Backpacking #budgettravel