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I left Takayama on one of the hourly Hida Express trains down to Nagoya to connect on to Kyoto. The area is famous for the Hida beef – not sure it is those cosseted cows who are supposedly are served beer and have their tummies massaged to provoke fine marbling or not. As I said earlier in my Kanazawa fine dining report, Hida beef cooked rare and served on salad there but the real deal steak was from Shikoku – maybe another case of exotic marketing and regional produce. Anyway the train winds its way thru a very picturesque wooded valley with a number of tunnels. I think Japanese scenery like that is at least as good as anywhere in NZ or Europe. Nagoya is a major shinkansen stop so a bit of a scramble with the usual 9 min gap to get across the station and find the way to the elevated shinkansen tracks.
The shinkansen took only 90mins or so to Kyoto. I had decided to stay at Kyoto mostly cos it was Friday/Sat. nights, hotels were busy – and Osaka was more expensive. Closeness to the station, given that I planned to go somewhere, was key. The
hullo, hullo -Kyoto station
an ongoing police investigation place I got, called the White Hotel, was a relatively basic tatami room, with the smallest capsule bathroom yet. But at only 4-5mins walk from the station and $75 a night it was ideal – once you found it. On the maps it appeared to be in the middle of some building complexes and with no access. With the result I walked up the presumed street it was off (labelled only in Japanese) and effectively past it. There was a 10 storey apartment block behind it and a known hotel on the left hand side of the road was there. Then found the lane way which ran under a house built over it. Unlike some it at least had a vertical signboard with name in English script as well as Kanji.
I hardly did the sights of Kyoto in the conventional sense. I had originally spent 2-3 days in Kyoto years ago so with Nara etc had seen most of the area (one good thing about Intrepid tours). So I just used my rail pass to go to a NW suburban area called Arashiyama. It was interesting to go on the Local train home with suburban commuters and then
have a bit of a walk around – it was 7pm and going on dark – a completely non-tourist area. There are a number of temples there but I really only found one as I did not want to get lost!
I then returned to downtown to eat and ogle the goods at Odabashi Camera (with Bic Camera likely the 2 biggest chains in Japan). Prices on cameras are not at all cheaper here and the Fuji camera I am very interested in buying (I will be checking Korean prices as well) is not really worth it to buy here. It is still too new so no discounts. There is usually a food floor of restaurants at the top of these buildings and so it was at Odabashi. They almost all have sign boards or menus with pictures so it minimises the risk of anticipation! However my choice, in an udon place, seemed much more like spaghetti. In a tomatoey broth with salad leaves and veges on top and melted mozzarella type cheese in it and maybe a couple of chunks of chicken in as well. It was therefore close to vegetarian but that was fine with me.
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