Japan trip: Day 4: Leaving Tokyo

Sorry this is a little late, Aren decided to resize all of the photos to a smaller size, to make viewing easier. He has some nifty tricks up his sleeves, such as actions in photoshop where it applies the resizing to all of the photos he tells it to, and an FTP which allows him to upload many photos into photobucket. Even with these tricks, though, these things take time.

Yesterday we headed to Kyoto. We found a gem in Shinjuku that we wish we had known of sooner. The overpriced, but good and convenient, breakfast buffet at the hotel was full yesterday morning, so we set out to find food. We went a different direction than typical. Usually we headed off in the direction of the station, this time we went in the opposite direction and started walking a square behind the hotel. While on ourtrek we found a Coco's restaurant. Curious of what a Japanese Coco's menu was, we went in. There was very little overlap between our Coco's and this Coco's. But they did have French Toast. Since fish andmiso soup doesn't really hit the spot at 8am, we both got the toast. It was very good. Whats more is that our whole breakfast was under 1000 yen, that's $8.20!! And people say Japan is expensive.

Our check out time was 10am, early, but whatchagunna do? We took the bus over to the Shinjuku station with all of our bags and embarked on the most difficult train experience to date. We had to connect to the Tokyo station and then take the Shinkansen bullet train to Kyoto. We had a little bit of trouble getting to Tokyo. Once there, we got reserved seats (no extra fee with the rail pass) for the bullet train. The ticket was in Japanese and not easy to understand. We got some very bad help, went all over the JR part of the station, and ended up missing our train. So we went back to the ticket counter, to exchange the reserved seats for the next train. This time our tickets were in English. So a big THANKS! to the first guy who gave us the tickets in Japanese! After that there was a desperate run to our car, but we made the train.

Once on the train the trip was something else. The trip to Kyoto is about 2 1/2 hours on a bullet train. Wikipedia says that the train we were on, the 700 goes 177 mph! It is almost scary going that fast on the ground. The structures closest to the track fly by so quickly. We mused how it was good that we were in the back of the train (car 14 of 16) in case we had a head on with another bullet train. At 177 mph, I'm not sure if having 13 cars in front of us would help much.

Some photos from the train. We were on the ocean side. We saw Mt. Fuji but it was completely covered in clouds and on the opposite side of the train, so no photos of that. I'm glad we didn't make the trip to the mountain, though. We wouldn't have been able to see much.

Every mile of the trip was developed: whether it be city or farm land. The only natrual environment was on the mountains

We so beat this local train in a race for pinks

so green

We made reservations at the Hotel Granvia Kyoto. The big plus to this hotel is that it is adjacent to the Kyoto train station, so no waiting for a bus like we had to in Shinjuku. Also, the Granvia is a 4 star hotel, and is costing us only about 140 a night. Pair that with our amazing view on the Kyoto tower, and it was pretty much a nobrainer. After our struggles with traveling yesterday, it was so amazing to just walk from the station right into our hotel. We immediately fell into the life of luxury here. An English speaking employee brought our luggage up to our room. My neck was killing me from carrying a heavy backpack and my purse for about an hour of running through the station, so I went ahead and splurged on anin-room massage, and I was VERY glad I did. To finish things up, we indulged on dinner on the 15th floor with a great view on the station, but the food wasn't really worth the 17 bucks a plate we paid. Oh well, all part of the experience right?

hotel room:

view:

There is a lot of entertainment in watching the taxis file into this bay. The intersection is always crammed with them waiting.

When we were waiting to go up to our room, Aren made a comment about the people staying here. He said he felt like we were in such a touristy place, and how none of these people wound never leave the station. Well, we've been here for a full 31 hours and have not seen any of Kyoto outside of the station! But you have to understand how amazing this station is. The station was recently redone, and was redone in a very open and modern form, filled with steel and glass, but it is just beautiful. There are about 12 open stories upstairs, and two basement levels. The upstairs levels are in a triangle shape, with thehypotenuse being a giant staircase. There is a whole floor here dedicated to ramen restaurants, another to a mix of restaurants. One of the basement levels is a grocery store with a lot of shops where you can buy snacks, like sticky balls of rice filled with meat, or pancakes filled with sweet beans. We got breakfast here this morning, it was a great way to find food both of us liked, since Aren is very picky.

Photos of Kyoto station:
from the 2nd floor, where the hotel lobby is

From the skybridge, maybe 8 floors up, our room is on the 10th floor

We read something about how the curved structure is supposed to embrase traditional Japanese desgin in a modern way

You can see the skybridge clearly here, it isn't as scary when you are walking in it

Here is the triangle shape I was talking about. If we weren't walking so much already, I'd download the theme to Rocky and we'd race up these stairs.

we aren't sure what these circle things are, but there are three of them. They sort of look like helecopter pads, but they obviously aren't that. Probably just fo sho