We left Hakuba on Friday, catching a taxi back to Nagano and then a train to Kyoto. The first part of the train trip was very scenic since it was on a slower train that travelled down the western side of Japan going through farmland and beautiful scenery. At Nagoya we transferred to the Shinkansen (Bullet) train to Kyoto. Again a bit of fun in the subway but eventually found our way out and got to our hotel, The General – Kyoto. This is a very nice hotel in a good area and has free drinks and snacks all day.
Our first night was spent looking for something to eat that we would all like and, as usual, struggled. We eventually ended up in this very quirky Okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake) restaurant that had manikins in kimonos sitting at many of the tables. The walls were covered in Japanese memorabilia, we had a lot of Astro Boy around us.
The next day we all went to visit the bamboo forest, which is exactly what it sounds like. The Japanese like gardens and parks since they are so packed in apartments. The trendy thing to do now is to go to a costume shop on the way to the venue and dress up in traditional outfits. It does make the walk around more interesting for the rest of us. To get us and the bamboo in the same photo, we used a 0.6 lens, which makes us both look tall and skinny (must use this more often).
While walking around the forest, we were constantly being passed by tourists in rickshaws, these guys must be very fit to spend their day running around the area and along the roads of Arashiyama. Arashiyama is the small town next to the forest, sitting alongside a nice fast flowing river. The streets were packed and as usual, every place that was mentioned on the tourist trail had a huge queue of people who just had to experience it. Just opposite where we took the photo of the river was a small coffee stand that “served the best coffee in Arashiyama”. I am sure it would have rated just as high as any of the coffee shops in Margaret River.
After this Rosie and Bruce split off from the group and went to see the Sake District of Kyoto. Bruce had high hopes of finding a sake brewery to see the process. We had no problems catching the trains to the area and had a lovely walk through some traditional building in narrow streets, but when we got to the sake museum, it was closed for the week – unlucky.
Back to an interesting shopping mall near the station and then we found a really nice restaurant and had some satay sticks, tempura and pepper chicken thighs that Rosie loved.
To finish our day trip we dropped into the Pokemon shop to look for a present for Ashton. It was packed with people but we managed to get some help from a sales assistant. Unfortunately the character Ashton wanted wasn’t available, we would have to order it online.
