At 12:07am we were lying in bed and felt the building swaying back and forth. As we were on the 34th floor (room 3437) it was quite the trip. About ten minutes later it was confirmed that a 5.5M quake had hit in Chiba prefecture to the east (where Narita airport is). Crazy cool to experience that, though Japan is seismically spicey it’s still fairly uncommon to feel an earthquake of that strength in Tokyo.
After that excitement we didn’t get to sleep for a bit, eventually waking around 6:30am so that we could get our showers and pack before heading to breakfast. While Michelle and Genetta got seated I worked on getting our three large suitcases forwarded to our hotel in Kyoto so we shouldn’t have to mess with them on the train and from and to our hotels. It went pretty smoothly until they were looking for a reservation number. Eventually, with Michelle’s help, we figured it out and I headed to join them at breakfast. The weather wasn’t as nice as the day before (quite a bit of clouds) but the views were still quite nice. We sat in a side room of the restaurant and basically enjoyed the same buffet as the morning before, with the exception of trying the mushroom bacon quiche.
That done, Genetta remained in the lobby while Michelle and I got our remaining small luggage and I made sure we left nothing behind. Then we headed down to the lobby and checked out around 9:15am and headed to the adjacent JR Tokyo station. There we quickly got Genetta the stamp she had missed the day before then used our Shinkansen tickets to access the platforms. One thing we had noticed all over Tokyo (and, it turns out, all over Japan) were paths of textured tiles that had either lines or dots in buildings, outside on sidewalks, etc. Turns out they are for sight impaired folk, the lines tell them to continue and the dots warn of a turn in the path. Really cool. Michelle sat in the waiting room while Genetta and I went to a small shop between platforms selling drinks, snacks, and bento — pre-packaged meals meant to be enjoyed on the trip. As our train was at 10:18am and only two hours we decided to just get a couple of drinks — water and a cold milk tea. Genetta joined Michelle in the waiting room while I took a few photos and generally geeked out over the trains. There were two that were connected nose to nose in something called the “Shinkansen kiss” — basically the two trains travel together a bit before one splits off from the other to go to their respective destinations.
We boarded the Nozomi (the fastest type of Shinkansen) 357 and took our seats. It was very clean and quiet, nobody talking above a whisper. The seats reclined as well. During the just over two hour journey we saw a wide variety of terrain — from major cities like Nagoya (with a really cool skyscraper) to suburbs to cemeteries packed with small stone obelisks to mountain canyons festooned with bamboo and a hint of color showing to beautiful creeks and rivers and a lake (Lake Hamana). The Tokaido Shinkansen line had a lot of beauty to offer! Sadly Mt. Fuji didn’t make an appearance — despite patchy blue skies the clouds still completely obscured the summit. Still, awesome! Update: I was going through the pictures to post in this blog and it did make a brief appearance (see below), yay!
After arrival in Kyoto around 12:30p we went to the restroom and then sought out food. We ended up eating at a place in the station, Matsuba. I had to duck and part the curtains to enter and the person seating us made a big to-do about my height. We took our seats and ordered. Michelle had grilled chicken and rice (though I helped with the chicken since it was a bit heavy on the teriyaki and she generally avoids that due to soy). Genetta had ramen and I had breaded pork cutlet (Tonkatsu) and egg and green onion on top of white rice with a bowl of noodles on the side. While I didn’t care for the noodles’ broth I loved the Tonkatsu. And, even more amazingly, I used my chopsticks the entire meal and didn’t land any food on my shirt!
About 1:30p we exited the Shinkansen area. There we saw a Krispy Kreme shop as well as a room filled with gachapon. I saw one that dispensed little figurines of Kyoto-related stuff like temples, shrines, etc. and tried to buy one. I say tried as I got my 10 100 yen change from a 1000 yen note and proceeded to put in the five coins needed for the gachapon. I must’ve gotten bored around four because the machine didn’t dispense the toy. The attendant noticed this and came over and when I counted six coins remaining in my hand I went “d’oh!” Put in the correct number of coins the next go-round and got my prize.
We entered the subway platform area, taking the green Karasuma line north two stops to Shijo station. From there it was a short-ish walk to our hotel, the Mitsui Garden Hotel Kyoto Kawaramachi Jokyoji. The only issue was it was along a one-lane road against traffic and less than optimal sidewalks, leading the small suitcase to make quite a rattle. We arrived at a Shinto shrine, Hokora, and our hotel was adjacent to that. The check-in process went smoothly and, though we were thirty minutes early for our 3p check-in we were able to go to our room, 514. Same three double beds with two pressed against each other but still nice and clean. Toilet seems a little less smart but the shower looked to be quite nice — a proper one rather than a tub. Nice! In this room the toilet area had a little wash sink with the main sink being in the main room.
We laid down to rest for an hour and a half or so then Genetta and I set out looking for umbrellas as the forecast called for quite a bit of rain both Friday and Monday. The sun was just setting but wow there was a ton of people out and about shopping. Across one of the main streets was Teramachi Shopping Street, a grand covered market lined with shops, eateries, etc. and Nishiki Market, another area with stands and such. Honestly, it all kind of blends together, the shopping here in Japan. We went to a mall, Kyoto Takashimaya, that was seven stories but each story was pretty wide open with areas for particular stores (and even some pop-ups) kind of seamlessly flowing from one to another. No central entrance to each store or anything. They had bookstores (with funky shelves), clothing and cosmetics, manga and collectibles, vinyl, and what I later realized was probably no accident.
The seventh floor was the Nintendo Kyoto store. Genetta and I spent quite a bit of time browsing the goods and Genetta bought a few Zelda souvenirs and mom one of the random packs, this time of Animal Crossing figures. In a major nostalgia punch to my gut they had the AC ambient music playing. Genetta wanted to buy a keychain of the Zelda boss key but sadly it was sold out. We found some Zelda-themed umbrellas but at 4,000 yen a pop decided to check elsewhere.
Yeah… there were some fancy ones at a department store at 16,000 yen (nearly $100!) each so we didn’t get those. We set out north up another busy street for the Kyoto LOFT store. Along the way we passed a Family Mart which did have some umbrellas at 2,000 yen ($12) but they seemed pretty flimsy. So we pushed on past some slot parlors, bowling, and karaoke in addition to lots of restaurants and ice cream. The LOFT was in the same building as UNIQLO, which I know Addison and Nichole really like. Unfortunately, the UNIQLO was under renovations until November 6th, so basically the whole time we’re in Kyoto. We got to the 4th floor where LOFT was and found they had a ton of umbrellas but they were either too much or sketchy. We figured if we were going to spend decent money on some they may as well be Zelda-themed so headed back to the Nintendo Kyoto store.
Along the way we passed a Baskin Robbins with the “31” cleverly placed in the “BR” logo as well as the Disney Store which was frankly a little disappointing. Back at the Nintendo Kyoto store I bought the three umbrellas and we headed back to the room. We spent a few minutes figuring out where to eat — we didn’t want to go too far as it was past 7p and Genetta and I had just walked a few miles.
We settled on Y’s Burger, a tiny non-chain Wagyu burger joint tucked in the street market. After ordering we went up some narrow stairs to a tiny room with plants hanging from the ceiling and a few sparse tables. A lady brought us our food. Michelle had the cheeseburger and Genetta and I had bacon cheeseburgers. They each had a flag planted in them. Mine was an American flag but Michelle and Genetta had Halloween themed ones with a pumpkin and a ghost. Cute! In addition to the burgers there were fries with some kind of orange-ish sauce and iced unsweetened teas. The burger and fries were excellent!
On the way back to the room we stopped at Rin Kyoto, a Uji matcha cafe. I got a strawberry milk matcha with a scoop of matcha ice cream and Genetta got a milk matcha. It was something to see them make — they doled out the matcha, sifted it through a tea strainer, then used a mortar and pestle to grind it out before adding liquid. Setting that aside they prepared the strawberry and milk with a scoop of matcha ice cream then poured the matcha on top. Finally, they sprinkled some edible (I hope, haha) gold flakes on top. Beautiful!
We headed back to the room around 9pm and I did my Duo. As I couldn’t stay awake another moment I went to bed around 10:30pm without blogging or offloading pictures.