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Japan Part 1 - Kyoto
We had planned for so long and finally, the day is here.
We left Singapore in the A380, at 1140pm on a Sunday night.
After a night flight and 7 hours in the air, we arrived at Narita.
First things first, we booked our seat on the Narita Express to Kyoto at the JR office.
We caught the train at 850am, made a stop at Shinagawa station to switch to the train to Kyoto at 1040am.
The ride was quite long and we only reached Kyoto at 1+pm. We had our first meal in Japan on the Shinkansen. :D
Bentos are quite fun. Haha.
After catching a cab at Kyoto Station, we reached our hotel in short order.
We are staying in Toyoko Inn and as per reviews, it is pretty small. But everything that is required is there and the room is neat and tidy.
They even managed to fit a bathtub in the toilet, and the toilet is the smallest one I have ever seen yet!
After checking in, we wandered around the hotel area, and walked till our feet nearly broke.
What on the map seems to be a short distance is actually very very far. Sigh...I am too used to seeing maps drawn by the people in charge of Sentosa and the Zoo.
In the end, we took a short bus ride to Nijo Castle. But we both don't really like to look at architecture so decided to skip it. We decided to walk to the Imperial Palace instead. Actually, I was more interested in the National Garden and since it was besides the Imperial Palace, we took our chances and walked there.
Well, it's a really long walk.
But the cherry blossoms were beautiful and the park was full of them. I think both of us really enjoyed the view in the park.
We had our first proper sit down meal in a tiny little shop along the streets. The shop was run by an old Japanese couple and only had space for maximum 16 people. They didn't speak english and we had to point to their display of fake food to indicate what we wanted.
I had the most delicious Omu rice and he had the most delicious Curry rice. We felt we have both been spoilt and will never find the ones in Singapore up to standard.
By then, we were both quite tired and trecked back to our hotel. But the train did not stop at the stop we wanted and wwe had another long walk in the cold night. He could not stand it and flagged for a cab and we were back to our hotel in short order. I mean, the cab only drove us past another street or 2 before we were in front of our hotel.
I think due to the lack of sleep on the flight and the travelling, noth of us knocked out fairly quickly and slept like 2 logs until the morning.
Day 2
We were supposed to wake up eary and try out the free hotel breakfast of rice balls and tea. It's simple but we wanted to experience all sorts of Japanese food.
Well...we overslept.
So we spent our day in Nara.
After figuring out the bus routes, we took a bus back to Kyoto Station and took the JR to Nara.
I had always thought Nara was nearby but it was actually one hour away by train!
Once we were at Nara station, we were feeling very lost .
Luckily for us, a tourist information centre was nearby and the very helpful lady gave us a map in english and drew on the map which way we should go.
She did thought that Singapore was in China and wanted to give us a chinese map instead.
The cherry blossoms were even more beautiful here and I saw so mnuch free roaming deers!
The deers here are a sort of tourist attraction and there were lots of vendors on the way selling some sort of biscuits you can feed to the deer.
The deers in the beginning of the route were more shy and will only approach you if you show that you are going to feed it.
At the entrance of Todaiji Temple, however, the deers there were aggressive. If they see you holding the biscuits, they will follow you in groups of 4-5 and nudge you until you give them the biscuit.
I saw an old Japanese man give up and throw his biscuits on the floor while making his escape.
The deers were pretty cute though.
When we made our way back to Kyoto, it was early evening.
We had a very satisfying dinner of Japanese grill. The meat was great, the service is of course good as usual.
As you can see, we are not fans of visiting temples and palaces so we skipped them. But I really love walking around and looking at the streets and watching people go by. i have been taking every chance to snack and wander in convenience stores.
Already, it's the second night and we will be travelling to Osaka tomorrow,
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Tuesday, March 31, 2009