02112016
We woke up, ate the yogurt we picked up from the corner store last night, when buying drunk munchies. It was citrus yogurt, pretty tasty. We also got to the post office to mail off the box. In so doing met, quite possibly the nicest man in Japan. He helped us through the process despite they language barrier and was very helpful. I think when the package arrives in the States, we will send a list card to that office thanking them for their help. We shipped the package surface, so we might beat it home.
We left our AirBNB and went to the train station to start our journey to Kyoto.
We had to go to a larger station than or Shimotikazawa station, so we headed to Shibuya, and activating the Japan Rail pass was a little complicated we stood in 2 lines and spoke to 4 information desks before we were directed to the right place, but once we got there out read very ready, and the agent got us reserve together on the next train to Kyoto. We had to metro to Shinegawa to get the high speed rail, we had enough times in Shinegawa for laura to grab some steamed dumplings at the station before getting the train.
The train was pretty nice. The seats were very accommodating, they were any the size of US domestic first class seats but much more foot room.
I promptly fell asleep.
The only picture I got.
Apparently we went through mountains and approached the ocean, I dunno check with laura she was busy working post cards.
First impressions of Kyoto:
it is much smaller than Tokyo, maybe we aren't in the downtown area, (i think we are), it looked alot like getting off the train in Milwaukee, you know your still in a big city, but not sky scrapers as far as you can see.
It is older than Tokyo. There are more traditional buildings tucked away in the neighborhood, I think primarily because it wasn't bombed to ticket during WWII.
More Westerners, I don't know if this is because there are more of them here, or because Kyoto is smaller and they are more concentrated, but there are a lot of young Westerners, French, Australian, and American from what I can tell.
Laura trying to take a picture of the cat outside the Ryokan.
We walked to our Ryokan, which is a traditional style Inn in Japan. The floors are the bamboo tatami, the walls very thin, in some cases, only paper. A family gets one room, with the folded out futon mattresses, sharing a bath/toilet with all the other rooms in the building.
We headed out ultimately for ramen that was rated very highly, near a major shopping area. The shopping area is actually built on the bones of the old main street, so while most of the structures were obviously new, there were a few 500+ year old shrines nestled in there.
The ramen place had a 46+ minute wait when we showed, so we took a number and wandered the mall. I was too hungry so we got a kebab, and we spotted a cheese tart place, mentally noting that for after the ramen.
The ramen was good. Laura loved it, I think it was her favorite, but I didn't think it was as good as that random place we stumbled into in Ueno. The slices of pork that came with the soup was fantastic, the most porky pork I've had in a long time.
By the time we got out of there, the cheese tart place was sold out so we settled on a "super crepe" a fresh made crepe with Ice cream, blueberry jam, whipped cream and a slice of cheese cake. All rolled up and ready to eat on the go. It was decadent and an acceptable alternative to the tarts.
After that we found our way home, and slept very well on our tatami floor.
No comments:
Post a Comment