マイク＆サム·ヘッド東！- A journey to Hong Kong & Japan - May 2014 - Day 7 - OSAKA TO KYOTO

[soarinfan]

Day 7 - Sunday 11th May - Osaka to Kyoto

So the alarm went off at 8am on my phone. I hit the snooze button. Whoops. Next thing we knew it was 9am! There go our breakfast plans! Universal had knackered us the day before so the extra hours sleep did us the world of good. We were only going to go and get something in the hotel restaurant but we decided it was probably stupidly expensive anyway being a hotel breakfast, so thought we'd leave it until we arrive in Kyoto and have a big lunch to make up for it.

The check out process was very simple and quick and full of Japanese custom and dignity - absolutely love this place. The bell hop waved us goodbye as we left the hotel reception and out onto the forecourt. We knew that there was a shuttle bus to the main Osaka station, however we decided as we had plenty of time and hadn't really seen any of Osaka. The walk only took about 30 minutes and it was quite nice to see some of the city. Although it was a Sunday it was still fairly busy with the hustle and bustle of vehicles all heading about their business. We arrived at the train station and purchased some tickets from the machine (took a bit of time to actually find the machine - we didn't want to go on the bullet train until our main journey tomorrow!) so we found the right place and finally arrived on the platform.

As you can see - everyone queues in Japan rather than the scrum that is a UK train station platform! There are a few different types of queues at train platforms we found. In this example, you either queued for the standard local service (which I believe was the yellow) or the "Rapid" service which is the white and blue. We were taking the Rapid service (but not the next train) so we had about a 15 minute wait. It only had one stop between Osaka and Kyoto which was more handy for us - we wanted a complete guarantee we were going to arrive where we wanted to! Whilst waiting I saw my first Bullet Train in the flesh stopping at a nearby platform - what a sight!

The journey was only 28 minutes and soon we arrived in Kyoto. The station was pretty enormous, and although we tried to make the best of the signage and tried to follow it, it did take us about 20 minutes to find the correct ticket machine for the subway system to get a ticket to our hotel. We also wanted to purchase a Shinkansen (Bullet Train) ticket for the next day, as it works on a seat reservation basis - if we got it now we wouldn't have to worry about it later.

We required a quick change to the other metro line on the way to the hotel which we could have walked as we found out later on, but as we didn't know how far it would realistically be we just took the subway. It chucked us out pretty much right outside our hotel which was perfect.

Looks like Heisenberg has made it to Japan!

When we reached our hotel, the Kyoto Royal Hotel & Spa. Lots of gold everywhere! Very royal indeed! The desk staff once again were amazing, and managed to find the words to humbly apologise that our rooms were just not ready yet as we were too early, but offered to look after our luggage whilst we went off and had fun. So we took him up on the offer, dropped the luggage and headed out to find some lunch. One of the first restaurants we came across had a menu which was completely in Japanese, but the pictures looked nice. It looked very modern from the outside, so I asked Sam to grit her teeth and try it out - she's not keen on trying food she may not like! As we were led in it was incredibly dark inside and empty as it had just opened for business.

Every table had one of these interesting contraptions built into them. A "Shichirin" which was essentially a gas burner which allowed us to cook the food at our table. Never tried this before but now we were inside it looked like a great opportunity. The server explained to us we ordered small dishes and cooked them as and when we wanted them.

We ordered some "Japanese Sausage" as well as some chicken dishes, a cheese fondue, and some other bits and pieces, the price was quite reasonable - I just wish I could remember the name of the restaurant in English! I can find it on Google Maps but without knowing Japanese I'm clueless!

The bill again was fairly reasonable so we paid up and headed back to the hotel via 7/11 (they're EVERYWHERE in Japan - the best place to find an international ATM to get out cash) to get some cash and a few nibbles and drinks for later on this evening. The plan was to check in and go and do some sight seeing before heading back for the evening, and the time was getting on. 2 female bell hops took great delight in carrying our luggage (and wouldn't take no for an answer) up to our room on the 12th floor.

The bed seemed incredibly comfy and the room was just what we were after really. The only thing I would say is that the bath is incredibly high - it felt like I needed to be some form of gymnast to climb in for a shower that evening! But it was clean tidy and modern so couldn't really ask for much more!

Conscious of time we headed out back to the subway station to catch a series of trains (subway and overground) to Saga Arashiyama Station which was about 25 minutes away. You had to be careful which car you get on because in Japan they have female only carriages, and the last thing you'd want to do as a bloke is get on one of these for fear of a bit of a backlash! When we arrived we were greeted with such a traditional Japanese scene, this is how I had pictured Japan. Small streets, small houses lining it, lots of wood and screens and terraces and streams. Loved it.

The walk to where the Bamboo Forest was which is what we were mainly there to see was about 15 minutes, though it took a bit longer because we ambled along taking in our surroundings. It was almost like a village in a city, its hard to describe until you see it for yourself but it was pretty cool.

The main entrance to the Bamboo Forest was full of local traders trying to sell hand crafted goods, ice cream, popcorn, drinks and services such as guided tours etc. It really felt like a hustle and bustle. However with just a few minutes walking into to jungle of bamboo it became very quiet, with just the sound of footsteps and the light murmur of talking between other visitors.

Its very nice relaxing walk to go on and I'd thoroughly recommend it if the weather is nice and you are in the Kyoto area. Its cultural as well which is what I was after. We passed by a gravesite which we were only allowed to go in if we had relatives in there, but watching people from the outside visit their loved ones was quite moving but interesting to see the difference from the UK. We soon arrived at a little tourist spot which featured a few shrines for people to pray, and of course the usual gift shop.

Walking around from this area there were more shrines which was great to observe people using them. There were also prayer gardens and other things to see. This is the kind of thing you see at Epcot - but it was real!

After walking across a train line which was the same train tracks we had just been on the train on (with no barriers - just flashing lights and an alarm bell!) there were some playground facilities for children and plenty more vending machines, where I grabbed what I hoped was Orange Juice (and it was - success!) and we carried on up towards the Shrine at the far end of the walk.

They do ask for a donation of a few hundred yen at the shrine entrance to enter. But as we had already walked the best part of a few miles to get there, we were more thinking about having the energy to make it back to the train station so we didn't venture in. We still wanted to visit Nijo Castle before heading back to the hotel (requiring another train). We headed back to the station which took about an hour or so walking. You could tell the Sun was starting to think about setting but it was still plenty light out. Unfortunately by the time we arrived at Nijo station (which was about 20 minutes walk from Nijo Castle itself) it had closed! How disappointing. It closed at 5pm and it was about 5:10 by the time we arrived so we had just missed it. But it was nice to see from the outside. The walls surrounding it and the moat were absolutely massive, smack back in the middle of a city. Think Tower of London but ANCIENT - amazing.

We were pretty knackered by this point so decided to head back to the hotel for a little rest before dinner this evening - our feet were aching! We ended up falling asleep until 8pm! Whoops! We both had a quick shower and I turned on the iPad to see if I could find somewhere to have dinner. This place called Ask a Giraffe kept coming up on most pages and it said it was only a 20 minute walk away, so we decided to give it a go.

Google Maps being Google Maps of course we were in completely the wrong block for the restaurant, but we soon found it amongst a closed open air shopping centre after about 10 minutes of searching. It was pretty empty and it backed onto a shop a bit like Ponderosa. I ended up ordering a spicy Spaghetti dish and Sam had the non spicy version - it certainly took the roof of my mouth off whatever they put in it!

Felt like a bit of a wasted opportunity for dinner but as we had slept in and didn't have a huge amount of time to go and find somewhere it would have to do. Not a massive fan of travelling to the other side of the globe and having something I have at home! On the way home we stopped off a newsagent type shop and grabbed an Ice Cream whilst I called home (this Pocket Wifi thing just becomes more and more useful!).

When we got back to the hotel I cracked open a couple of the beers I had bought earlier from 7/11 and Sam had a small shandy before we hit the sack for a good sleep - we needed it from all of the walking. Though it was pretty hard to sleep because I knew what tomorrow evening meant - TOKYO DISNEY!


Thanks all for reading Day 7, comments and questions appreciated! Stay tuned for Day 8!

[Guest]

Today looks daunting finding your way around! Looking forward to reading more :-)

[welshwiz]

Great pics showing each step of your busy day! Lots of different places today and experiences today.The local sights and customs are interesting, I'm learning a lot from your report, you must have researched a great deal to be so good at finding your way around with limited translations.

[Bobsledwheels]

Well excited to read about Tokyo Disney!

Looks like a really interesting place to visit - think we will be heading there too