Advertisement
Published: October 1st 2013
Train Tickets
From Kansai airport to KyotoDon't know why I bothered going to bed. I was up at four am! Quickly dressed and legged it down the road to the taxi rank. Met Mel and got the 5:30 am airport bus. We were worried about traffic, hence the earlier than usual start, but it was fine, and we got to the airport just before seven. We were too early to check-in for our flight as the desks weren't open yet. Sorted out our checked luggage and joined the queue that was forming. It was a breeze. Then we went to go through security and immigration. What a nightmare! The queues were immense. They were all overlapping, too. It looked horrific! Too many people. Why aren't all these people staying at home to enjoy the holiday with their families? Guess five days off work is too good an opportunity to waste and not leave Korea. Anyway the lines moved pretty quick and we cleared security and immigration pretty quick. Grabbed a sandwich and a smoke before the flight.
Peach is a Japanese budget airline, with their base being Kansai airport near Osaka. The plane was packed with seats, there was very little legroom, as they seemed to
Cute and Polite
Sign on the train have fitted as many rows as they could on the plane. I haven't flown budget for a couple of years, so have forgot the crappy conditions. Haha! Couldn't believe the lass sitting next to us, first she asked if the drinks were complimentary (yeah right love) and then she reclined her seat. I felt really sorry for the person behind her. Flight was about an hour and a half. Not too bad, a little bumpy in places.
We landed at Kansai airport. It took a while to get through security, so our bag was waiting for us. We got the bus to the proper terminal. Peach flies to the ghetto budget terminal and the transport to Osaka and other cities leaves from the proper terminal, terminal one. The queues at the JR office was mental, no way were we joining that to buy tickets. So we tried to figure out the ticket machines. Not the most user friendly things in the world. A lovely lady working at the station came and helped us, we even broke the first machine. Lol! Anyway we got sorted and headed to the platform. We had to wait about ten minutes for the train.
We made it!
Kyoto Station We got a seat in unreserved car easily. The train was expensive around 2,700 yen, but it was direct to Kyoto, no faffing around and changing. The journey to Kyoto took about 72 minutes. I have to say Japanese train loos are the best I have ever encountered, not a whiff of urine in the air!
At Kyoto Station we headed to the tourist information office and a sweet lady there helped us out. She told us all the info we needed to get the bus to our capsule and recommended the one day bus pass for 500 yen. It was about half the price of the subway pass. We were also able to bus the bus pass there in the tourist information, so that saved us faffing on on the bus later. She also pointed us in the direction of a sushi train restaurant in the station.
Musashi Sushi was the restaurant we went to. It was fab! The food was great and there was plenty of choice, and you could ask the chefs to prepare you something if you couldn't see it, or if you wanted it with or without wasabi. The plates were colour coded
Musashi Sushi
Kyoto Station to tell you if the dish contained wasabi or not. The restaurant was super cute, too. The chefs were all in the middle preparing sushi fir the conveyor belt, or the bento boxes that they sold from a window in front of the shop. There was a great feel about the place, me and Mel were happy to people watch all the old Japanese grandmas and granddads in eating their lunch. The sushi train that we had been to in Fukuoka was a lot more space age and impersonal, where as this one had a bit more of a homey atmosphere, like the same people had been eating there for years. I managed to stuff eleven plates of sushi down me gob. I was stuffed but happy with a belly full of sushi. I tried a few new flavours, roast beef (not as good as I had expected) and surf clam salad, that was my favourite.
The bus to the capsule hotel was straightforward to get. The bus stops in front of the station are numbered (or lettered, can't remember which) and we managed to find the right stop easily. The directions from the capsule were a bit annoying
Musashi Sushi
Kyoto Station as they said go west. How do we know which way is west? It's not like we are carrying a compass with us! Anyway we found the capsule with only one instance of getting lost, and we got that sorted pretty quick.
9 hours capsule hotel was very minimalist and stylish, Mel said if apple designed capsule hotels then this is what it would look like. Everything was white and clean. We walked in the door, and immediately had to take our shoes of and put them in a locker. We were given slippers to wear. After checking in, we headed to the lift. Men and women are segregated and there are even separate lifts to take you to the correct floor. I think we were on the fifth floor, if I remember correctly. After stepping out of the lift there were two toilets, before the main door to the capsule room. Inside the room was dark and the capsules were all against one wall. with plenty of room for people to move past each other. We explored our capsules, which were lit up. They weren't as small as I thought they would be so I didn't worry about
It's been too long!
Salmon sushi at Musashi Sushi, Kyoto Station feeling claustrophobic. There was plenty of room to wiggle about and get comfortable in them. The place was so quiet and I was so knackered that I could of had a kip there and then if we had of had time. After a few photos, we went to put our stuff in the lockers on the third floor where the bathrooms are. The lockers were big and we managed to get Mel's massive backpack into hers. There were, I think, bout seven showers in the bathroom, so we should easily get on. We walked down to check out the women only common room. Not a lot to see, no people and nothing to really do in there.
We headed back to the station, via the electrical store next to the hotel so I could buy a memory card, to pick up Malia. We made it to the station with enough time, so we headed to Diaso to compare it, to its Korean stores. i;m sure the woman in the tourist info office must of thought we were mad, not asking about the important sites, but the location of the nearest Diaso. Diaso is basically poundland but with a bit
Fancy some oral squid?
Musashi Sushi, Kyoto Station more class. We spent a good half an hour in there, looking at all the goodies. We vowed to return to shop (it didn't happen 😞).
With our new disguises, Hello Kitty surgical masks, we headed over to the station to meet Malia. We waited by the tourist information centre, but got bored there, so we moved to a spot, where we could see people coming through from the trains. Anyway, she spotted us first. We headed to the top of the station, as the view was meant to be good and we looked down on Kyoto and up to the Kyoto tower. Also the steps leading up to the station's roof garden are illuminated with welcome signs and pictures, very cute and does make you feel welcome.
We took the bus back to the hotel, so Malia could dump her stuff and then we were off in search of dinner. It felt more like a real capsule hotel this time as lots of salary men and less tourists were checking in. The hotel even sold shirts for the salary men, in case theirs was too grubby to wear two days on the trot. The guy from the
My Finished Stack of Plates
Musashi Sushi, Kyoto Station hostel recommended two places for us. They were a good 10-15 minute wander away up an alley, which didn't look like it would have much up it. Oh how appearances can be deceptive! We spotted the first restaurant, but as we only had the name in English and not the Japanese characters we were unsure if it was the right place. The second place, Okudohan, had an English sign, so we knew it was the right place. The restaurant was cute, it was like a converted house. We sat at the back on a proper table, sod sitting on the floor. I wish we could of sat at the counter and watched the chefs cook, but there wasn't enough space. We ordered lots of lovely food. We were given some veggie sticks and dipping sauce to start with. We then shared a lovely salmon and avocado salad, a veggie dish, chicken (I think teriyaki style) and some croquettes. All the dishes were delicious and we washed them down with some vino.
We made sure we had left some room for dessert and went to the convenience store to get some treats. We had a some gorgeous desserts, Family Mart
Musashi Sushi
Kyoto Station you are the king of desserts in Japan. Then we went for a wander. We wandered around the neighbourhoods close to our hotel, there were lots of ctue individual stores and restaurants, there is definitely less of the chain mentality compared to Korea. The building are really cute, too. I loved the fact there were millions of bikes around, meaning cycling is a common form of transport and safe to do.
After wandering round our neighnourhood we decided to head over to Gion, the geisha district, as it wasn't too far away. A ten to fifteen minute walk and we were there. It was pretty late now, after 11 o'clock and the area was really quite. It was lovely walking around the old style streets without them being full of tourists. Most of the houses and restaurants were closed. We saw groups of salary men walking around, they are a lot more uniform in Japan compared to Korea, in Japan they all wear the same black pants and jacket with a white shirt. There were also a few taxi cruising around to pick up the rich salary men. We also got a glimpse of a few geisha walking home,
or getting into taxis. It was nice to see them going about their business. We definitely had a good couple of hours wandering the Gion neighbourhood. It felt really atmospheric after dark, I'm sure it would feel very different during the day with hordes of people around.
We made it back to the capsule hotel around 1 am. After heading to the washroom floor to get sorted and change into our leisure wear that the hotel provides for sleeping and dossing in. Then it was up to the capsule. I love how you leave everything in your lockers on the floor below, so there are no distractions. The capsule was intended for sleep only and that was the plan. After getting comfy and pulling my blind down, I was out like a light.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.067s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 14; qc: 32; dbt: 0.0289s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.1mb
