6 days in Kyoto, Japan: Itinerary, Estimated Budget and Tips

So. You've booked your flight to Japan and you specifically want to go to Kyoto and experience anything and everything traditional this awesome country can offer. In that case,let me share my Japan 2015 trip itinerary with you along with other stuff which I hope will help you in more ways than one.

Things to take note of:
-We arrived at Kansai International Airport (KIX) at around 9:00pm and got past the immigration around 11:00pm of April 4 so I will tag this as Day 0.
-I was with my mom and I was the one who paid for our accommodation and the pocket wifi, but the rest of the budget are for one person

6 DAY ITINERARY

Day 0
Arrival at KIX
Check-in at Higurashi-sou guesthouse

Day 1
Arashiyama
Tenryu-ji
Bamboo Grove
Nonomiya-jinja

Day 2
Halfday trip to Nara!(coz we started late.hehe)
Nara Deer Park
Todai-ji
Nigatsu-do

Day 3
Nijo Castle
Check-out Higurashi-sou and transfer to Guesthouse Rakuza
Shopping at Kawaramachi area
Yasaka-jinja
Hanami at Maruyama Park

Day 4
Kiyomizu-dera
(afternoon was spent going to the airport for my mom's flight back to Manila at night)

Day 5
Fushimi Inari Taisha
Nishiki market
Pontocho

Day 6
Walk along Kamogawa
Kyoto International Manga Museum
Flight back to Manila

So that's basically what I visited for my first trip, but this is what my original itinerary looks like. Haha!

click to see larger photo

Spring in Japan: Nara

April 7, 2015

2nd day

We woke up late partly because we were tired the previous day and partly because the bed was sooo comfortable.

It was really cold that day, about 3 degrees Celsius if I remember right. So cold that even the guesthouse staff was shivering and saying さむい (samui), meaning 'cold'. We left the guesthouse at around 10am and walked about 10mins to the nearest JR train station. We passed by a park and the Nijo Castle.

I started to shiver and had to put on my gloves while walking. Thankfully, my mom was feeling warm enough. We were going to Kyoto station and transfer trains going to Nara, but I had to buy another layer of clothing or better yet, another jacket coz what I had wasn't enough to keep me warm. We went out of Kyoto station to go to Uniqlo as recommended by the train station staff. I bought a jacket and decided to have lunch at Mcdonald's before heading to Nara.

Kyoto station

Kyoto station's awesome structure

Lunch at Mcdonald's

Afterwards, we went on a day trip to Nara. Nara is the old capital of Japan, even before Kyoto. This is one lovely, quiet town with lots of traditional shops/buildings. When one say Nara, one might automatically think of free wandering deers. Yes, free wandering deers. They're harmless, or atleast they were when we were there. I saw other tourists feeding the deer so I decided to buy deer crackers from one of the stalls along the road. As soon as I stepped away from the stall, I was mobbed by the deers. There was some feeding, some nibbling and a bit screaming. Lol.