ISI ended up changing my city to Kyoto and I’m a little nervous. Because of over tourism I want to tread lightly. Any advice for anyone staying in this city long term for the first time? Staying in Kyoto until university in Osaka a year and a half from now.
by KimonGate
14 comments
As someone who stayed in kyoto for 1 n a half year. Believe me you’d only feel the over tourism if you actually live near kawara or gion. Any where outside of that area you are safe. I lived in ukyo ku near nishikyogoku only 2km away from kawaramachi and its all neighborhoods
I studied in ISI for over a year, and you just end up feeling the overtourism IF you go to the tourist areas. I lived near Shijo Omiya and took a bike to school and would only see tourists if i needed to do something in shijo kawaramachi, gion, higashiyama or arashiyama.
And even then, you get to know the times – if I needed to go to arashiyama i’d just go super early or super late, and just avoid the bus routes that I knew were super crowded/slow due to shijo traffic.
Not all of Kyoto is mobbed . I really like Higashiyama as a base as it’s so calm .
Kyoto is massive. There’s a network of overcrowded bus routes terminating in busy shrines. There’s the center of town. The rest is a very large, in places semi rural city.
Unless you live right in the center of town or by a big tourist site, itself an expensive option, probably the vibe will be “quiet”. I highly recommend traveling by bicycle though, the one place I do feel the tourists is on public transport.
I lived in Shimogyoku for a while. I think the biggest issues with overtourism are the prices and the public transport, but really most areas are relatively quiet. For your place of residency you need to look whether you are on a bus route between the central station and a major sight (esp. buses between the main station and gion, kinkakuji, ginkakuji, or Shijo Kawaramachi and between those places can be a problem. Esp in the morning and evening you’ll want to have a bit of buffer and at popular spots you might have to queue for a few buses these days, but you can always walk a few hundred metres and take the stop just before yours. For what you get most food is a bit overpriced but it’s better than Tokyo. Public transport is also on the more expensive side but pretty decent for a major city in Japan.
The people in Kyoto are a bit reserved (esp compared to Osaka) and I mainly met new people via friends I already had from previous visits to Kyoto, not by striking up conversations. There’s certainly a bias against foreigners and a certain amount of resentment but most know that it literally keeps Kyoto running financially and basically everyone knows someone whose job is related to the tourism industry one way or another. If you speak Japanese and are knowledgeable about a cultural aspect (art, aesthetics, Buddhism, literature, sado, silk fabrics, or architecture mainly) you can lead a decent conversation and will be respected as it proves that you’re not only willing to integrate but have the basic building blocks for the foundation of a true kyotoite: cultural education and snobbishness. What is quite noticeable compared to Tokyo is that communities purposefully hide themselves more. There’s a lot of hurdles in addition to language barriers for clubs and what not to join and most events which are meant to be neighbourhood affairs are not announced online and communicated via flyers, word of mouth, and a few posters in the leadup. This makes it harder to join any event which not already accepts tourists and in turn makes it harder to socialise while being taken seriously as a resident.
Nevertheless it is probably the best city in terms of quality of life in Japan: There’s plenty of gardens and parks which are virtually empty unlike in larger cities like Tokyo and Osaka, they have 24/7 supermarkets (not Konbini) with an even better coverage than much of Tokyo, the Konbini coverage is only slightly lower than the larger cities, the rent is at an acceptable level, and the cultural offerings are second only to Tokyo and even then it depends on what you’re into with Kyoto easily outperforming Tokyo in some regards. There’s much more to explore around Kyoto and Osaka in my opinion, with Tokyo kind of suffering from it being completely surrounded by other cities who, apart from Yokohama, struggle to open interesting landmarks and cultural institutions because of their proximity to Tokyo. As of right now the Kansai Wide Excursion pass (the only JR pass for residents in Kansai) is also much cheaper than the Tokyo Wide Pass, so it is financially easier to explore the surrounding regions. The only big downsides are a worse public transport network than Osaka and Tokyo, a complete lack of notable nightlife other than a few craft beer bars and old izakayas which are not particularly welcoming to even people from outside the neighbourhood (theoretically there are a lot of sento but as a foreigner it would probably be difficult to socialise there on your own), and no easy access to an airport with KIX and Kobe being quite far away. Holidays also can be more expensive as JR East offers a select few region passes to residents enabling comparatively cheap multi-city journeys in Tohoku, Nagano, and Niigata, while JR West at best only allows you to go anywhere between Southern Fukui, Shingu, Tottori, Okayama, and Takamatsu for 3 days. So it might be cheaper to just take a train round trip to a single city for more days.
Really think the overtourism is overstated. If you’ve lived in any major city I don’t think it’s any worse. As others have said, the particularly touristy areas like Gion you feel it a bit, but even then I was unfazed by it. Nothing can break me after having to get used to crossing Westminster Bridge in London at rush hour.
ISI changed your city? Without you saying anything to you?
I live in Kamigyo Ward, near Kitano Tenmangu Shrine. It’s super peaceful here, you only feel the overtourism in tourist places like Gion. Most of the neighborhoods in Kyoto are very nice to live in tbh
I stayed in Shugakuin and it was the absolute chillest
If you dislike tourists but also enjoy convenience of the city life. Consider Ukyo-Ward. Currently staying beside Saiin station, easy access to the chaos of the city in Kyoto (many busses) or Osaka for just 410yen.
It’s near almost every Japanese fast food chain, 24/7 supermart nearby with bentos on discount at 9pm. If you’re sensitive to noise it may be abit rowdy on the weekends at night due to the bars and nightlife, but I stay from the street diagonal from it, so it’s not that bad.
I do regular runs from Saiin station all the way up to Arashiyama for 8K, and save a train fare back by just running 2 ways. You can run by the river meant for cyclists cycling from Nara – Kyoto. It’s quite beautiful.
It’s a shame that int’l students aren’t making a community at r/kyotostudents . It would be a good place to chat and organize meetups.
My wife and I start living in Kyoto in Oct last year, and we enjoyed every day of it. My wife also goes to ISI Kyoto and I work as a expat in a Japanese company, and she’s having so much fun at school and just generally exploring the city, that I am jealous EVERYDAY!!!
ISI Kyoto is in the 円町/二条 area, which many local resident live and it is not busy with tourist at all. You can also find many super old(seriously, like 100 years+ stores/family business) in this area, it’s really worth exploring. **If you choose to live in 円町/二条 area, you should be fine for avoiding tourist.**
I say choose where you live very carefully in Kyoto. You don’t want to live in the downtown area(Sanjo-Shijo-Gion) where it is just crowded, but you also might want to pick a relatively new apartment. FYR, we live in Fushimi Inari, where there are so many tourist, that I start to understand why some Japanese people do not like tourist…. but at least our apartment are pretty nice and new.
Kyoto has the most schools and universities per capita of any city in Japan. You aren’t going to feel any sort of overtourism concerns in practice.
Bro Kyoto is big as fuck unless you work right in the hub of it you won’t be affected; it is mostly rural outside of the city just like the rest of Japan
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