Shinkanzen, Hirota Guest House, Kaiseki
Sunday turned out to be a great day. We made it to the shinkanzen with plenty of time to grab some drinks/food for the 2 hour bullet train ride to Kyoto. In the train, I tried my best not to hack n cough all over the other patrons, but mostly I slept. The ride was so smooth, like being in a plane-amazing experience to go 150mph and be that smooth!
We got to Kyoto around 2:30pm and easily located Hirota Guest House. Ms. Hirota wasn’t there, but her brother showed us our little cabin, nestled in the back of the property. It is a lovely place to stay and would be perfect for families. There is a room upstairs, a tiny kitchen, a bath with a very deep bathtub and shower unit, an entrance foyer which could be used as a second bedroom and a porch.
After unpacking, we set out for a walk around Kyoto. We decided on a walk down towards the river. The Ponto-cho Dori(Avenue) was a great place to stoll. There were these cute little rustic restaurants lining the street with views of the river. Also, for the first time, we saw folks walking around in kimono’s and that was neat. After quite a bit of strolling, we decided it would be neat to enjoy a dinner on the porch of one of these restaurants to watch the sun go down.
We picked Daitoryo-a pricey but amazing place specializing in Kaiseki(sp?). Kaiseki is food disguised as art. The food is arranged in beautiful little dishes, and all the ingredients are only the freshest, and reflect not only the region of Kyoto but also the season. Dennis and I were amazed at the presentation, it seemed wrong to eat the food because it looked so pretty on the plate.
After taking a lot of pictures and taking it in visually, we popped the delicacies in our mouths and then smiled everytime. There were lots of people walking down by the river, and we had a perfect spot for people watching. The 6 course meal was 62 bucks a person-so it was definitely the meal SPLURGE for the trip, but well worth the experience.
After dinner, we had a nice stroll back to the hotel and finally met Ms. Hirota who was quite gracious. She went over our itinerary for the next couple days, making valuable suggestions about the order of viewing landmarks and also about which buses to take. We found out there is no way we could see and do all that we wanted to do, but she helped us to focus on a few key sites. Way to go Hirota-sama!
June 5th, 2006 at 7:58 pm
Kyoto is much easier to navigate on foot than Tokyo. The city streets are laid out in a chinese manner, which is to say rectangles for blocks. Tokyo is a maze-like labyrinth of streets and alleys. Fun, but confusing. Good thing there are maps all over!
But Kyoto is a piece of cake. The bus systems is *very* extensive, and we had a few crowded adventures (the school kids love to chat to Americans :-). If only the fast and efficient subway went to more of the tourist spots….
The rule for Kyoto is: start very early! Japanese school kids go on field trips to historically significant places, so if you don’t get there when it opens, forget any hope of a wandering the place and taking in the serenity.
Kids will be kids, giggling and playing nosily as they do. But, it was a lot of fun every time they wanted to practice their english with us!