Kyoto Railway Museum & Osaka Tsuruhashi

We do an overnight trip to Kyoto since there is always plenty to see. There were a couple major tourist spots we hadn’t checked out yet, so we decide to brave the crowds and make the massive journey of 30 minutes to Kyoto!

Kinkakuji

As implied by the name, the golden temple does make a nice post card. The gardens around the temple are pretty nice too, but M really liked the rock garden at Engyoji next door.

Kyoto Station

We decided to stay near Kyoto Station this time, and found a hotel with a large shared bath. The hotel was not so special though, and will be forgotten, but at least there were some other neat temples to checkout. Toji feels a bit of an iconic Kyoto temple.

Higashi Hoganji is kind of hard to miss, wandering around Kyoto Station. It wasn’t part of our planned itinerary but certainly worth a stop. Being free to enter doesn’t hurt either:). The gates were probably my favorite part of this one.

Kyoto Railway Museum

However, while temples are always interesting to see, we do get a bit of temple fatigue after seeing hundreds, so the Railway Museum was a nice change of pace. For anyone with kids, or just an interest in historical trains, the museum was quite impressive. Usually we do a couple hours at most at a museum, but M wanted to come back for 2nds after lunch! There are plenty of interactive things to do, and lots of trains to check out. I liked the historic Osaka Loop Line train, maybe cause that’s what we use most to get around and is close to our home:). I learned that the service started in 1898, that’s pretty old.

They must have one of the largest collection of steam trains too, the round house had like a dozen.

There was also a recreation of an old train station, and some classic ticket vending machines. It reminded me of summer vacation trips when I was a child, trying to figure out which of the hundreds of buttons to push to get the proper ticket. Sitting in an old style Shinkansen was pretty nostalgic too! I would highly recommend the place, if you have a spare afternoon in Kyoto.

Osaka Tsuruhashi (Korean Town)

For some reason, it took us nearly a year to finally go check out Tsuruhashi. While Korean food can be found in a lot of places, Tsuruhashi has had a strong Korean presence for a long while and is probably best known for it’s many Kimchi vendors and such. I think in recent years, it’s become a bit more touristy too with a concentration of food, shops and K-pop related stuff.

There are many of the usual bbq and soon-dobu (spicy tofu soup) shops, but we found something a bit more unusual to try. I guess it’s a bit of a fondue with melty cheese and various items to dip. An odd thing I’ve noticed in Korean restaurants in Japan, is the prevalence of melted cheese dishes with various meats. I had never seen that before in the USA, maybe it’s a phenomenon only in Japan?! My theory is that most Asian foods in Japan has been reimagined to cater to Japanese tastes… and this touristy K-town all felt a bit Japanized. In many ways, it’s similar to the Kobe “Chinatown” which felt awfully fake too. This is odd, China and Korea are neighbors, but finding authentic Asian food has been really difficult.

Anyhow, the food was mediocre at best… at least something different:). We later asked one of M’s classmates parents (who are from Korean) and they had the same thoughts on Tsuruhashi and local Korean food in general. Ironically, I look forward to some Pho, Biriyani, LA (haha) Kalbi and Dim Sum back in the San Fran Bay Area!