Today is the two week mark of our trip, and we left Tokyo this morning, with great sadness. Tokyo was wonderful, even with all our minor troubles. We packed up early and opted to taxi to the train station. Even with shipping our two (now heavier than ever) suitcases directly to Osaka yesterday, our two carry-on wheelie cases, four backpacks and a duffle bag, plus purses and murses and umbrellas… in 35 degrees, yeah no, walking 15 minutes to the subway and changing from one line to another just was not happening today.
We got to the train station early enough to be relaxed about the whole departure, no rush, no sweat (literally). Bought a few bento boxes to eat on the train, one with braised shortribs, one with fried chicken, one “special autumn set” and Maylin got an egg and pork sandwich. The bullet train was FAST, and we dug into our meals. 2.5 hours later, we pulled into Kyoto, and it is even HOTTER than Tokyo!
Oh, by the way, the bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka supposedly has views of Mount Fuji, but just like last time I was in this neck of the woods, clouds got in the way…
Our hotel room was not quite ready when we got there, so we stored our bags and set off to explore. It is HOT in Kyoto, if I haven’t mentioned it already, so we ducked into Holly’s Café. I feared it would be a tourist trap with the English name, but it was full of locals! If I see a soufflé pancake on the menu, you know I’m trying the soufflé pancake! Téa had an ice cream, Maylin picked a slice of pound cake, and Joe has stopped ordering food and lives off of our leftovers. They apparently specialize in Dutch drip coffee, so we tried two of these, iced. Wayyyyyy too strong for me, so yes, Joe had two. The soufflé pancake was nothing like the one I had yesterday, more like an angel food cake, cut out with a circle cutter…
Fortified, we continued on towards Nishiki Market. This is a narrow alley with food and specialty craft stalls on both sides, with cramped lines of tourists and locals in neat lines between the stalls. It was packed, but luckily cooler than out in the streets. The smells in this market are just incredible, and the snacks, treats and full on meals are everywhere. A skewer of seared Kobe beef cubes? Don’t mind if I do! We also picked up some jelly candies and candied seaweed.
At almost 3pm, I directed my troops towards the hotel, as we could now check in. We picked up the keys, and Maylin’s feet were about to fall off at this point, until… She unlocked the door and entered into a Pokémon heaven themed room! There’s an enormous Snorlax covering two of the four (!) single beds in the room, and a Pokémon table with two couches facing it, plenty of room to eat or work or just hang out. There’s a kitchenette full of Pokémon decor, Pokémon covering all the walls, even Pokémon inside the shower/bath room!
(I’m thinking there needs to be a bonus blog entry at some point of some of the cool things that Japan has, the half shower, half bath, all clothes dryer type room is so useful! If you want to read about the quirky things we see along the way, pop a comment below this blog entry!)
Room thoroughly explored and only partly enjoyed, we set out to find dinner. There’s a restaurant close by that has Japanese food for Joe and I, and Western choices for the girls, and we head there. There’s no server to greet us, just two machines for you to punch in your order, pay, get your food tickets and find a table. Essentially, all you have to do from this point onwards is sit down and enjoy your food when it get there. The kids menu is not available at this location, so Téa chose fries with hot dogs, Maylin only fries “because she’ll share with us”. Maylin is definitely the adventurous eater, she’ll try anything you poke towards her face, while Téa is quick to wrinkle her nose and say “no thanks, I’m good” (even though sometimes I know she’s hungry). Joe had a Japanese style hamburg with gravy (no bun, essentially a fist size meatball only), and I chose seared beef (with fond memories from yesterday’s steak dinner). Both of our meals came with miso soup, rice and a few noodles. A jar of pickled vegetables sits on each table, and the rice is self serve for refills.
Seeing as the girls had such meagre dinners, we went on the hunt for some sort of dessert. Because of the heat, we didn’t want to walk too far, but there was a mall (we automatically now associate malls with air conditioning) only 250 metres away, so we aimed for that. We found the Pokémon centre first, then an amazing bookstore with a large stationary section (and if you read about our adventures in Ginza in Tokyo, you know that Téa and I were automatically drawn to this area), and an exclusive, expensive and terrible selection food market. We were hoping to find ice cream in the food market, but the selections were not great, so we ended up at a green tea café instead. Both girls got kids portion soft serve ice creams, and Joe and I split a “Matcha Nama Chocolate Parfait”, a green tea dessert with jelly, cream, cereal, ice cream and red bean paste. Delicious!
On our way back to the hotel, we noticed our restaurant from earlier was now packed, with a line up out the door. I guess we’re just early diners! Eating around 5pm is both good, as it’s quieter and we don’t have to feel rushed, but also bad, because most restaurants in Kyoto don’t open until 6pm! We’ll see what our day looks like tomorrow, maybe we’ll pace our snacks and lunch differently.
Having Pokémon in the room is of course also good and bad. Maylin practically jumped at the chance to take a shower, as she could “talk” to her Pokémon friends on the walls in there, but she also won’t stop hurling herself at this enormous Snorlax! I’m sure the novelty will wear off eventually, either that or we’ll move on to Osaka.