Finally a ryokan in Kyoto

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I have been trying for a month to find a place for Susie and me to stay while we're in Kyoto, Japan. I really wanted traditional Japanese for our stay. At first I researched & researched for the perfect place, and I finally came up with this place, the Heianbo . Unfortunately, they were booked. Then I tried another place... and another... and another. I was getting desperate.

Fortunately, someone at tripadvisor lead me to the itcj, the International Tourism Center of Japan. Both are wonderful sites if you're trying to plan a trip to Japan (tripadvisor, for anywhere) remotely. The ITCJ has maximum cost restrictions for the accomodations to be on the site, and it caters to foreigners trying to book from outside the country. You can do searches for everything in an area, and you can make reservation requests straight from that site, instead of trying to run down each hotel's information. It's great. Easy to use.

Anyway, I finally got us a reservation at Ryokan Rikiya . I hope it will be nice. I think it's a little more expensive than I hoped & not quite as nice as I would've liked, but it was open, and it's in a great district in Kyoto. It also has a private bathroom, a nicety that most ryokans do not provide. I think it'll be somewhere between great and just fine with us. Fortunately, Susie is laid back & very agreeable about just about anything we do... except eating sushi. This could be a problem when I want to eat sushi for breakfast, lunch, & dinner every day while we're there.

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