Japan 2010 Day 10

Today was mainly the transit day back to Tokyo from Kyoto followed by an evening with Marina.

We got going later than we had been even though I still woke up as early as I had been. At 9am we met at the lobby and headed up the street to the McDonald's for breakfast. I didn't want to try to jam our suitcases into a breakfast place in Kyoto station so figured it was our best bet. They apparently have hotcakes on the menu for breakfast and I got the hotcakes set which included a hash brown and a coffee as well. It actually wasn't that bad at all. I was surprised. Sure the hash brown was greasy but still it all tasted ok. After breakfast we walked back down to the hotel. The McDonald's you may recall was up near the Imperial Palace park so it took a few minutes. We checked out of the hotel pretty much right away and took the subway to Kyoto Station where we basically just headed straight up for the shinkansen. I bought some choco-cookie-mushroom snacks and a coffee for the wait and trip. We were a bit ahead of schedule for the departure time of the train. Still the weather was nice and the wait wasn't all that bad.

The train left at 10:56am and we were on time all the way, which of course is no surprise for Japan. The trip was basically uneventful and I used the laptop to watch Hero along the way. The battery fell about 3 minutes short of the end. From there I just window watched the rest of the trip. Unfortunately there was a haze around the mountain areas and we were not able to see Fuji at all on the ride. It must have been obscured in haze and clouds. Still when we arrived in Tokyo the skies were basically clear with a few fluffy clouds and the temperature was still nicely warm. We took the Yamanote line to Hamamatsucho from Tokyo Station and then it was a short walk back to the Villa Fontaine which was right where we left it. We were basically able to check in right away. It was about 2pm when we got in. I think check in time is supposed to be 3pm but they had rooms. We asked at the desk and Ronni was able to change her room to a single charge. It turns out they charge more for more people but you still get the same room, which is what we thought happened. I was happy she could change it down so not to get overcharged. It took a couple minutes to explain the situation but the guy at the desk was very helpful.

After getting our stuff dropped off in the room we immediately walked out to the Tokyo Tower area so I could walk around part of the park next door. I figured it was too nice a day to spend several hours in the hotel waiting for Marina. On the way we passed through Zojoji Temple again and it was a bit more active than it had been the other times. There was chanting and such and a few small stalls selling things which we hadn't seen there before. After passing through we walked to the park where I left Ronni to sit a bit and walked around the park. The train day leaves me with a feeling of lesser accomplishment so I needed to some walking. It is a nice little park with some stairs and a landscaping and a waterfall and I even found a little shrine which I suspect has to involve hopes of love or fertility or something of the sort for the number of eggs, both chicken and quail, I found in it. There was also a lot of one cup sakes there too.

After the bit in the park we walked back through Zojoji by way of the cemetary and found that whatever was happening involved a significant number of people having a few group photos taken. Ronni thought maybe it was a graduation of some sort. I guess if Buddhists graduate it was something like that. From there we walked back to the hotel by way of stopping at a Sun Kus to pick up some beer and snacks for the room (for me at least, Ronni found some Smirnoff Ice bottles and bought that). This left us enough time to clean up and get ready for the night out with Marina. I also spent a few minutes having a beer and some Cheeza crackers that were very tasty while writing the early portions of this post which turned out to be longer than I expected for a transit day... I really hadn't eaten anything but the mushroom cookie things since breakfast by this point. Still I couldn't eat too much and ruin the Kaji dinner.

Marina was running late, so instead of meeting her at the hotel we met her at the north exit of Hamamatsucho Station. We both got there within a couple minutes of each other so we were well timed. From there we walked down the street a little to Kaji for dinner. Along the way I explained that Brien exited Japan early. For dinner we all had the Kaji Steak Special which is the Kobe beef set. Kajima-san was exactly like he was 2 1/2 years ago and the food was just as spectacular. He started us off with a small appetizer set that had a shrimp with garlic pesto, bamboo and what we think was horsemeat sashimi and a glass of blush wine. Then as a special he had a gigantic scallop that was still in the shell for each of us. He dissected them and cooked them and pretty much served us the whole thing on the shell. The meat itself was very sweet and very good but there was a sort of neck thing or something like that which was very rubber though still tasty. It was a bit difficult to eat. From there he worked his way through the vegetables which again included radish, squash, onion, new potatoes and garlic chips that were fried with the beef fat. At that point he took out the beef and started it up for us. I ordered rare and Marina and Ronni got medium rare, again the stuff was cooked for similar times but he gave them the thinner pieces and me the thicker pieces. The steak was again incredible, what I remembered and worth coming back to Japan for. He cooked some bean sprouts with green and red pepper strips to go at the same time as the steak. He followed that with steak cracklings made from the beef fat again then we had the fried rice with garlic and beef fat and a miso soup. I managed to get in two beers during the meal. I had seconds on the rice again. After the rice we go the mango which was fresh and delicious. After the mango came a small coffee. We sat and chatted for a few minutes after eating then headed on our way back towards the hotel. I should point out that Marina said in all the time she has known him he looks exactly the same, so it is not surprising that to me he looked exactly the same...

On the way back to the hotel we found a Caffe Veloce (yes, it has 2 f's in the caffe) and had a full size coffee each for Marina and myself and Ronni had a hot chocolate. I also had a coffee jelly that was very tasty to go along with it. We sat and talked for a fairly long time and it was a nice night. Probably close to 11pm we decided to head in for the night after making plans to get together with Marina for Friday for a day of fun.

The pictures for today can be found here.