Day 11: kyoto + shin-kobe

*back dated entry*

for the last lap of our honeymoon trip, we will be going to the kansai area & we will be staying in kyoto.... at first i considered staying 2 days each at kyoto & osaka but after shifting around so many hotels during our trip, i last minute changed to just 4 nights stay in kyoto..... so early in the morning we set off from takayama to kyoto cause it's quite a long trip...

bentou from takayama station

yummy food

snowy road along the way to kyoto

apparently kyoto is a much bigger station than i imagined.... when we came out of the shinkansen station, we took a wrong exit & then end up walking a HUGE round the stations to get to the other side.... so do take note which side of the station your hotel is at.... so this time i booked hotel hokke club kyoto, it's situated just next to kyoto tower...

hotel hokke club kyoto

toilet

hotel room

same as the reviews i saw online, the hotel is really convenient... within 5min walking distance to kyoto station & there are lots of food places nearby.... there is a yododashi just behind the hotel, you can get cheap ice cream from their supermarket =)

so after putting down our luggage, we took train to shin-kobe... do take note that the shin-kobe station isnt the same as kobe station, they are pretty near to each other.... based on my search, there doesnt seem to be alot of things at shin-kobe area but i wanted to take the ropeway, hence i have to make a trip there...

shin- kobe station

entrance to shin-kobe ropeway

there is about a 20min walk from the shin-kobe station to ropeway station... you just need to follow the signs along the way & you will get there.... for the ropeway you can either choose 1 way or return trip ticket.... for us, we chose the 1 way ticket cause i want to check out nunobiki waterfall which could only be accessed via walking & it turned out to be quite a mistake, i shall elaborate later...

cable car

scenery from the cable car

so about 15-20min ride, you will reach the top station where the herb garden is....

nunobiki herb garden

ropeway model

lunch

since the weather wasnt good that day, we didnt have the mood to visit the herb garden so we just took a quick look along the area before heading down.... there is this visitor center with a small cafe outside the garden, so we got our lunch there = hotdog....

route downhill

windy road

along the road to the mid station is the herb garden but we went during winter so there wasnt much herb growing... there were more staff planting the herbs then actually growing herbs.... the pictures didnt do justice to the actual place, the roads were really windy & steep.... i was like leaning back while walking, so it really strain my legs quite a bit.... so for those people who have weak leg muscle, i guess you can skip this place...

green house

along the way to mid station, there is this greenhouse.... they have quite nice variety of flowers there... i think there is a cafe there too but we didnt explore much...

mid-station

shin-kobe ropeway route, photo taken from here....

as you can see from the map, the mid point is the middle station, you can either take the cable car back to the lower station or like us, walk all the way down..... there is this fork road at middle station, either you go straight down or d-tour abit to check out the nunobiki reservoir.... at first we considered going to the reservoir but to my astonishment, there wasnt a concrete path to that place.... it was like a super steep hill trail down so naturally we cant walk that way.... the road to nunobiki waterfall wasnt much better but at least it was a paved road....

slippery trail

nunobiki waterfall

 so after much hard work, we FINALLY reached nunobiki waterfall.... there was this very tiny restaurant over there & i am really curious how the delivery man deliver the food cause the roads were too small & steep for any vehicles to come in..... in my opinion, i think the waterfall isnt worth the tiring walk.... it was nice but not the OMG kind of nice.....

more slippery stairs

bottom of hiking train

scenery at the hiking trail

 after the waterfall, we continue towards the laps of the hiking trail.... the roads were much flatter there but still filled with slippery stairs... throughout the whole trip, i was like gluing my eyes on the ground so that i wont miss my step..... by the time we reached the bottom of the hill, i was like all sweaty & tired.....

personally i was quite disappointed with the ropeway, i was expecting more based on what i saw on the website... of cause i didnt expect the steep & slippery route which was extra difficult for me since i was wearing heels... not super high heels but still difficult..... i think the trail will be a better walk if you visit the place during autumn & you can see different coloured herbs.... due to the lack of time, we didnt manage to try out any kobe beef store =( BUT we will be visiting japan again end of this year, hopefully we can try the famous kobe beef this time =)