Japan Day 5 - To Kyoto

Friday morning we woke up in our ryokan, and had a wonderful morning soak before breakfast (did I mention how much I love onsen yet?). Breakfast was yet another adventure, albeit a little bit less so than dinner the night before. The other neat thing about the ryokan is that basically everywhere on the grounds you can wear the yukata (cotton bathrobe) given to you as part of the room, so it makes for a very relaxing experience. Breakfast consisted of salad, common in a Japanese breakfast pretending to be even a little bit western, many small dishes again, and a couple different soups, which were both delicious. There was also natto, which we didn't even bother to open because no one wants to smell that (natto is a fermented soy bean product that smells like everything nasty, is super stringy and slimy, and I never have brought myself to taste it so I can't comment on that bit. It's supposed to be really good for you though...).


After breakfast we relaxed in the room a bit, with Charlie attempting to yo-yo in his yukata some, difficult because of the droopy sleeves, and had one last soak in the tub before we had to head back to Tokyo around noon.

   

Mostly Friday was a travel day - 2 hours or so took us back to Tokyo, where we met up with Cackett at Haneda airport, and got him hooked up with his Japan Rail pass. Then we went straight to Kyoto via the Shinkansen. This is about a 3 hour trip, and we arrived in Kyoto around dinner time. We went to a soba noodle restaurant in Kyoto station (a convenient place to get food as there are a ton of restaurants in the department store area there). The station has a huge internal staircase with escalators going up and down, and it was having an interesting light show while we were there, which was pretty unique. After dinner and enjoying the station, we headed out to find our AirBnB.


Our AirBnB was fantastic in Kyoto. It was a couple stops away from the main station on a train line unfortunately not covered by the JR pass, but other than that I had no complaints. It was a little townhouse, which was fantastic, with 3 bedrooms, and 2 bathrooms. Downstairs was a bathroom, the shower, a washing machine (which we used as planned to refresh our supply of clean clothes so we could get away with just a carry on sized suitcase), and the kitchen/dining room. Upstairs were the 3 bedrooms and another half bath. Between the train station and the AirBnB there was even a grocery store! We bought bread and peanut butter and jelly, plus fruit, ramen, iced tea, and seltzer, so that we could eat breakfast at least each day in the AirBnB before heading out. This was my first AirBnB, and Cackett said it was the best AirBnB experience he'd ever had; I must admit it set a high bar for me for future experiences.

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