Blogs from Kyoto, Japan, Asia - page 87

Hey everyone, Sorry for the delay in travelblogs, but this is gonna be a long one...our 3-day trip to Kyoto, which is the former capital of Japan. Since Kyoto is quite a ways from Tokyo, we took the "Shinkansen" (or "Bullet Train") to get there. The Shinkansen has this nickname because of its very fast speed - about 200 km/hr!! By Shinkansen, the trip is only about 2 and a half hours, but VERY expensive. It ended up costing us over 50,000 JPY (or over $500.00) for both of us to get roundtrip tickets. Once we arrived in Kyoto, we decided to find our ryokan first and check-in all of our luggage. A "ryokan" is a Japanese-style hotel with absolutely nothing western about it...no beds (or any furniture for that matter), tatami mats on the floor, ... read more

So, on the 3rd of April I turned a quarter of a century! It was a beautiful day in Kyoto that day. For my birthday Andy had booked a night at a japanese ryokan - which is a traditional japanese inn. It was a both a really nice and different experience. There is no permanent bed as such. There is a main room and a small sitting room. The main room has TV and for most of the day just a table and cushions. When it is dinner time they bring you about 4 courses up to your room and when you are finished, they pack up the table and make up your futon on the floor. At first it is pretty strange getting so much service, but quite nice. The rest of the day we ... read more

Having had no trouble finding accommodation anywhere in six months, Kyoto finally caught us out and we spent our first day bouncing around tourist offices trying to find accomodation having drawn a blank on the internet. After a very long time we finally ended up in a western style hotel for one night and a Japanese 'Ryokan' for two more. The Ryokan was the full paper walls, roll your bedding out on the floor and try to squeeze your feet into tiny slippers experience and quite entertaining if a bit pricey. Apart from that we saw yet more temples, braved a mechanised sushi restaurant and visited an old shogun's hangout with some very poor tiger paintings ( though in fairness the artists had never actually seen a tiger ). After all that we jumped on a ... read more

Two years ago, when I was living in Hirakata City, I was convieniently located 35 minutes south of Kyoto. I can't count the number of weekends I spent wandering the tourist oriented streets taking in the sights of ancient Kyoto... I loved those weekends, and travelling back there this past weekend has reminded me why. Kyoto is currently Japan's seventh largest city with a population of about 1.4 million, and although the downtown sector is quite modern, it is still home to many priceless structures. Actually, Kyoto is home to some of Japan's oldest shrines and temples, and it was Japan's capital city (and the emperor's residence) from 794 until 1868. Due to the significance/value of its historical structures, Kyoto was not targeted during the air raids of World War II. Friday afternoon Logan and ... read more

After my side trip to Nara, I headed back to Kyoto to check into the Gojo guesthouse, my lodging for the next three nights. Once I got into Kyoto, I figured I'd walk to the guesthouse, but unfortunately I somehow ended up on the wrong side of town. I decided to give-up on the walking idea and grabbed the subway. Once I got off, I was positive I knew which way to go, but again, ended up going in the opposite direction of the guesthouse. And when I finally found the area, I couldn't find the actual building and ended up walking passed it two times before I noticed the small sign on the ground. So after my two-hour trek with backpack and daypack in tow, I checked-in, met a couple of my roommates, then went ... read more