Japan Day Four
Today we took the train to Kyoto. I did this last time, but made the mistake of not buying a JR Rail Pass before leaving the US. The pass is an incredible deal; it allows you to travel on any JR line for 7 days for $300. Considering this is almost the price of one round trip ticket to Kyoto, it pays for itself almost instantly. You just have to remember to grab it before you head out.
The train ride was mega pleasant. I spent most of it trying to find the perfect ‘train song’. Alexi Murdoch did pretty well, so did Tom Baxter, Nick Drake and Kings of Convenience. “All Comes True” was probably the winner. So we started out at 9am and got into Kyoto around 1145 or so. Once we got there I was reminded how ugly Kyoto is. Of course the Kyoto you see in pictures looks great, but if you aren’t on temple grounds, the city is hideous.
It took us 2 hours to find our ryokan. We were looking for a little guest house called Uronza, and were following a picture of a GoogleMap on a phone (bad idea). What we didn’t know was that our GoogleMap had put the address about 8 blocks away from where the place actually was. This made asking for directions rather impossible (though that didn’t stop us from trying). We totaled it up later and figured out that we asked 16 different groups of people how to find this place. Once we did, of course it was closed until the evening, so we had to set off to sightsee with our bags in tow.
By this point we didn’t have a whole lot of time, so we decided just to hit the main attractions. First up was the Golden Pavilion, followed by the Heian Shrine. I was still overcoming ‘temple fatigue’ from two years ago, so this was all the temple visiting we had in us this time around. We also ran out of time; everything closes at 5 so before we knew it, we were in search of Hinode (my favorite ramen place on the east side). Of course Hinode was closed too, so we had to recalibrate and head up the road to Omen (which has become my new favorite place). I had a fried green pea rice ball (so good I dreamt about it) and a “large” bowel of Omen noodles.
After dinner we were basically out of money from the various cabs and snacks we had purchased along the way. We decided to walk to the ryokan (about 2 hours away). Before doing this, we used a Japanese pay phone to call the place and inform them of our late arrival. To my surprise, this was very easy and worked exactly as we hoped. My previous experiences on the phone in Japan have not gone so smoothly (every time I try to make a dinner reservation…). Along our walk found a ton of great little back alleys filled with shops and restaurants, all more busy and bustling than they were during the day.
Uronza, our ryokan, was amazing. It was just us, a pair German architects, and the Japanese “dude” who ran the place. Our shoes were left at the door and we were shown to our room; a small, cozy, wooden square with nothing but a pair of sheets and what looked like a tea kit. There was also a mirror attached to a wooden box. The place was basically a treehouse in the middle of Kyoto. Just what we needed to rest up for our next day in Osaka.
