Japan 2010 Day 4

Today should be a quick and easy explanation as the majority of the day was aimed for travel to Kyoto.

I woke up at 6:30 got packed and showered and the like and met Brien and Ronni at about 8am. We walked to Hamamatsucho Station and reserved our train tickets to Kyoto at the JR office. It didn't take long. We got the 469 Hikari bound for Okayama. It would be the same train route that we took to Himeji when we were on the last trip. From there we crossed through the station then found Tully's coffee shop to get a coffee for me (I also had a warmed donut with an apple type filling) and hot chocolates for them. It only took a few minutes to do that then we headed back to the rooms and finished packing and I let them have access to the internet through my computer then we checked out. They charged Brien 500 yen to dispose of the suitcase that had been destroyed in the flight.

After that it is a story of transit for several hours. We took the Yamanote line to Tokyo Station then wound our way through to the shinkansen tracks and waited for the train. It obviously turns around at Tokyo Station and we had to wait for the cleaners to get their jobs done and turn all the seats so they were facing in the other direction before they would let us board. Still we left on time. The ride itself was uneventful. The weather for the day overcast but not threatening rain. We did see Fuji a fair bit of the early portions of the ride. It still looks like a big pile of snow. The ride took about 2:45 to complete and we got into Kyoto Station by around 1:45. We got the information office and got a guide map in English and checked where our hotel was in comparison to the station. It turned out to be a 3 stop subway ride from there to here. Unfortunately we need to figure out which end of the train to be on and where to turn inside the station to come out of the local station in the right exit. We pretty much got out the furthest point away then I got twisted in orientation so we walked a few minutes out of our way (but not bad) before we found the hotel.

I am on the 7th floor and they are on the 4th. 711 and 409. Rooms again look similar size. Having difficulty understanding what is a double and what is a single. Anyway the rooms are clean but the hotel is a bit older than the Villa Fontaine. I would not call it run down however. To get to the internet I had to take a modem from the desk up to the room. The modem plugs into a jack on the side of the TV. I suspect it is really a router that has a coax lead but I can't really be sure. In any event it is an odd setup. I am hoping they won't ask for it back until we are leaving. I guess they only have 20. I would think they have more than 20 rooms. If they confiscate it when they clean the room tomorrow I will know. Anyway I have access for the time being and can upload pictures most likley it looks.

After a quick spot of getting settled Brien and I walked around a short bit to discover if there was anyplace to eat locally and also I wanted to make sure of where the Imperial Palace entrances were so we would not be late for our tour tomorrow. The walk is a few minutes but not bad. I few blocks up. The palace is situated in a public gardens and the gardens are deceptively large. We didn't actually walk all the way up to the palace itself but just got the gist of where it was. I didn't want to kill Brien with the extra walking since he came along. In our walk we discovered that the area near our hotel is not exactly loaded with restaurants. We wandered a bit off the main roads but still not a lot. We found a 7-11 and bought some snacks.

I found on the map that I got from the information office where the majority of the restaurants are and presented some ideas based on reasonable walking distance to them. It gave us a general vicinity to visit and we chose pretty much the second restaurant we passed which was very similar in nature to the one we at at on Tuesday except that you purchased and turned in tickets to get your food. I had a burger plate I think. It was mildly tough to tell from the pictures what I was picking. There were two types of hamburgers on it, one stuffed with cheese and the other with some sort of sauce on it. They rounded that out with a couple pieces of potato, something I think was deep fried pork, some green bean, 2 mini hot dogs then soup, salad and rice. It was filling and I had a beer to go with it all. I thought one of the burgers might have been a dumpling of some sort from the pictures but I was obviously wrong. In any event the food was good and they served it very quickly. We got done eating fairly rapidly and headed back to the room before it got dark. I toyed around for a few minutes with the idea of walking around on my own but decided to relax for the night instead.

I had already bought the snacks and beer from the 7-11 and decided that was how I would finish out my night.

I have posted the pictures for day 4 here.