Kyoto

Day 1

Choice

Unless you’re gluten-free and have nowhere else to eat, I would not recommend this place. The decor was super cute, but the place was overpriced for what it was. The service wasn’t great either.

I only liked one of the cheeses on the cheese platter, but maybe that’s because I’m spoiled by Miyoko’s cheese and the cheese platter at Encuentro.

The quiche-of-the-day was dry and flat and really not good at all.

Matsuontoko

This place had amazing onion rings and brownies, but their burgers were so bad that I’m not even going to post a picture of them.

This is the view from the train station by our air bnb.

Day 2

Cafe Phalam

I think I saw somewhere online that they weren’t completely vegan, but everything in the pastry case was vegan and they made me a soy latte, so I can’t really ask for more from a coffee shop.

Monkeys!

These monkeys live in the mountains near Kyoto. There’s a fee of $5 to hike up the mountain to see them. I think humans can buy food to feed them, but the humans have to go inside of a cage and stick the food through the bars to the monekys who are outside. I found this to be hilarious and thought of it as a human zoo where the monkeys can come to the zoo and see the humans in the cage.

Most of them just chill and pick bugs off eachother.

I was only slightly obsessed with this little baby monkey.

Prunus

Prunus is a well-located vegan restaurant near the train station you get off at to go the bamboo forest and to see the monkeys. I was extremely pleased with everything I had here, and I even made them a new location in yelp so others could find them more easily.

They even have a section in their menu about bird-friendly coffee, which I didn’t even know was a thing.

Bamboo Forest

Walking through the bamboo forest made me want to go home and plant a perimeter of bamboo around my house to keep muggles out.

Does anyone know what the dishes on the graves are for?

I got really good at asking cashiers to help me read labels in stores. These are vegan.

Manga Museum

I had a character drawing done at the Manga Museum, and apparently, if I were an anime character, I would look like this.

Kyoto Wakuden

We found this little fancy store that sold natural-colored salt. I could only afford to get the purple one, but I wanted them all.

Day 3

Sentido

I got to meet up with Alexis for coffee, which was so nice because I got to ask her how to say things in Japanese and listen to her order her coffee in Japanese and basically just be enamored by her cuteness for a few moments.

Sentido had cute cups, but I was disappointed by the number of coffee shops in Japan that couldn’t do latte art with soy.

Hale

Hale is located in an outdoor mall in the center of Kyoto. While waiting for Hale to open for lunch (their hours are weird, so make sure you check them before going), we walked around the mall and bought cute candies and some Rilakkuma paraphenalia for mine and Jessica’s houses.

The mall had the cutest vending machine I had seen in my entire time in Japan.

The mall also had a metamorphosis if you like expensive cute dresses with lots of ruffles and bows.

Hale is a little bit hard to find since it’s wedged between two stands in a very crowded flea-market type area. Here is what the 2 stands to either side of it look like.

Left:

Right:

If you’re looking for a very traditional Japanese meal, then Hale is probably good for you. I personally found it to be a bit too authentic for me. It was vegan temple food, but the food was just a bit too different.

I only ate about half of it, and I couldn’t even use the bathroom because it was the kind with the hole in the ground.

However, the walk to the bathroom was quite pretty.

% Arabica

There are 2 location of this cafe. One is by the monkeys. The other is by a temple at the top of a hill. The one by the monkeys doesn’t offer soymilk, so if you are looking for a latte, don’t waste your time there. The latte at the one by the temple was quite good, but they’re very strict about bike parking, so maybe you should walk there.

Here’s another vegan snack I was able to find with some help from a cashier. Isn’t it cute???

All the stores and shops in Japan were really into decorating for Halloween. It was so nice to see! This is inside the Kyoto train station (I think).