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Japan is famous for all-things green tea or matcha… and the most popular place to get your green tea fix is in Kyoto, but where in Kyoto? As a huge fan of green tea desserts, I decided to go for a matcha pilgrimage to a small city on the southern outskirts of Kyoto called Uji (宇治) during early March. Is it worth the trip?

We started our day with a trip from Osaka to Uji without knowing what to expect. I’ve done some research on this small town, and mostly just the green tea places that we’d be visiting. Because food = travel, or is it food = life? Anyways…

I knew that we were going to visit the popular green tea restaurant Itohkyuemon (伊藤久右衛門) closer to the Uji Keihan Station. When we arrived at the restaurant though, we realised that we had to wait for about one hour. So we put our name down and then walked around the neighbourhood.

First stop was the Ujigami Shrine.

Ujigami-jinja (宇治上神社) is believed to be the oldest standing shrine in Japan. Although there is no official record of when it was first constructed, experts estimate that Ujigami Shrine was well established by 1060. It was closely linked to Byodoin Temple as its “guardian shrine”. Ujigami Shrine became recognized as a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1994 together with other shrines and temples in the Kyoto area.

Source: japan-guide.com

Ujigami-jinja is a relatively tiny shrine so we spent about 15 minutes checking it out.

We then walked out through the torii gate and found the locals gathering along a long line of green tea dumplings. Yup.

We later found out that they were aiming for a Guinness World Record, and they made it!

A line of 16,291 green tea dumplings running between two World Heritage sites in Kyoto Prefecture’s history-steeped city of Uji set a Guinness World Record on Sunday [6 March 2016] for the longest such line. Volunteers from local charities and businesses took three hours to set up the line of roughly 3-cm-wide dumplings on wooden stands stretching between Byodoin Temple and Ujigami Shrine, both UNESCO-designated World Heritage sites. A Guinness official was on hand to measure the longest unbroken section of the line at 341.57 meters, recognising it as a world record.

Source: Japan Times

Now that’s not something you see every day! ;)

We then walked around the neighbourhood without going too far to the other side of town (because we knew food was waiting for us), and then slowly made our way back to Itohkyuemon with empty tummies.

Here are some of the things my friends had:

And here’s what I ordered… Green tea soba, the cold dipping kind. The best soba I’ve ever had thus far!

For dessert, I chose the seasonal matcha x sakura parfait, because if it’s seasonal it’s not going to last forever!

But to be honest, I probably still like just the usual green tea parfait. I mean, I did go crazy on sakura (here, there, everywhere, and beyond) but cherry blossoms are definitely better seen rather than eaten!

After we had our green tea feast, we decided to walk towards the Uji bridge heading to the other side of town. And guess what?! There was a tiny festival or something (wasn’t sure what it was) happening, and plenty of locals wandering around.

All along the bridge and then to the other side of town, we saw the long lines of green tea dumplings being paraded for the Guinness World records. And they were starting to pack them up too, with many kids bringing containers of these mochi dumplings home.

PS: Our friends had one or two too along the way, since they were giving them out (or at least we thought they were).

We continued our walk to the next destination along some very pretty sights of Uji…

Our next destination was Byodo-in (平等院), another UNESCO World Cultural Heritage building. Byodo-in is probably the most popular icon in Uji… apart from the green tea, of course.

Yep, Byodo-in is totally gorgeous. And very photogenic too. I tried taking photos of the temple from various angles, and it looked as magnificent no matter which side.

Our friends wanted to check the temple from the inside, but I decided not to (since you had to pay plus it didn’t interest me). So I decided to visit the museum instead.

No photos allowed in the museum and, to me at least, it wasn’t that exciting either in there! LOL, I’m so uncultured.

But what was exciting was finding a blooming plum tree once we were done with our museum walk. Just remember that this was back in early March, so the sakura season had not started yet. So yep, I was crazy excited.

Gorgeous! We then walked around the temple area a little bit more before heading towards the exit. Of course, I had to take a few more photos of Byodo-in, plus these koi fish in the pond.

If you’re in Uji, I’d recommend a visit to Byodo-in. It’s a very nice well-kept temple area, and if you like history or temple stuff, you’d like this one.

We then walked around the town and realised that the local crowd had slowly disappeared. There was hardly anyone around on our way to Uji Station. I guess Uji is off-the-beaten track for most tourists.

We checked out another popular green tea shop called Nakamura Tokichi just opposiste Uji Station. The restaurant had a long queue, but we were full anyway. The shop had plenty of green tea products, plus a tasting area, in which I tried some delicious matcha kasutera among other things. Omnomnom, free food.

And that was it! My awesome time at Uji came to an end, and I wish I had a few more green tea stuff along the way. Here’s a picture of me happily posing with my parfait, because it’s love guys!

Uji is a small city filled with gems, like green tea and green tea and more green tea. If you’ve visited Kyoto a couple of times, why not visit Uji instead next? It’s perfect for a half day trip away from the tourists.