The Amazing Race Asia, Kyoto (15), Public Transport

Japan, as many other big country, has a nice transportation system. Shinkansen, a bullet train that can move for 300km per hour, is one of the famous transportation in Japan.

For inside the city, you can count on the subway or public bus. in Kyoto, if I would recommend you, I prefer to take a city bus rather than train, so I see the city landscape with many old shrine and beautiful autumn trees view.


If you want to take a bus, you must stop a bus station. The incredible thing is, in the bus stop you can know what time will the bus come. The bus stop provide you an information board like the left picture so you'll know the minute that the bus will pick you.

In Japan, you enter the bus in the middle door, and exit from the front door. For payment, you do that when you exit the bus, right beside the driver. You can pay by your transport card, money, or you can also buy a day pass ticket like in the picture above. One day pass ticket only cost 500 yen, you can buy it from the bus driver, and I strongly recommend you to have it because you can use this card many times in a day, so it will save your money more efficiently.

There are 3 route bus in Kyoto (if I'm not wrong) that called sightseeing route. It will bring you to the famous tourist spot and if you want to look around the city, you can choose these buses.

The bus driver, as well as the taxi driver, is very neat. They wear a suit with dress, which is very typical in Japan to use that for work. And also, they are very friendly and polite.

In Japan, even the wheelchair person can use the buses. Like in the picture,the bus driver will kindly help you to enter and exit the bus. And more amazingly, all the bus passenger waiting patiently without any complain, although the process to move the wheelchair takes time around 5-10 minutes. I hope Indonesian people can be like that too.

You can find more about the city bus system in here.


I had arrived and departured in Kyoto from Kansai International Airport (KIX). This airport is very large and it was built in an island so we have to cross a long bridge to reach there.

You can go to KIX by using bus or train, which is cheaper, but when I want to go back to Singapore, my sensei told me to use the MK taxi from my hotel in Kyoto city beacuse I had a lot of baggage so she think that it'll be difficult for me to take the public transport. They more like typical travel in Indonesia for me than a taxi in usual. It cost 3500 yen from your hotel to KIX, and they will pick you in your hotel at the exact time like they told you (yes, Japanese people are very on time person).

well, this is the end of my story in Japan. Hope I visit this place again, soon :)