Day 6 - Kyoto - Travelling and A Date with Diabetes

Probably our slowest day thus far, today consisted of our commute to Kyoto and a lazy explore through the shopping district.

After a big night the night before, we hadn't set an alarm to wake up this morning - maybe not the best idea when you need to check out. With disrupted sleep all morning, waking up every 30 minutes from about 6am, I figured I'd eventually get up when I felt like it a little later. After my last awakening at 8.30, I slept in till 9.20 am, and rose with a start when I realised the time. I woke Addy up and we quickly got about showering and packing, and managed to be out the door by 9.55am, just 5 minutes before the time we needed to be.

We were admittedly a little seedy still, so we went to the cafe on the corner for some coffee and a pastry while we sorted out our day. Our Shinkansen to Shin-Osaka wasn't till 12.17pm, so we had some time to burn. To suck up some of the time we went for another stroll down Hon-dori, where Adelaide was disappointment by the fact that most of the shoe shops (and most notably, the Dr. Martens shop) were closed, or still in the process of opening.

Frustrated, we hopped on the street car and made our way back to Hiroshima station, where we bought some Konbini morning tea and lunch for the train. While Addy foraged, I minded the bags and transferred the library of photos we'd taken the day before onto my laptop (I had also hoped to finish the blog post, but unfortunately there wasn't any free Wifi). We went to the platform half an hour early and watched a few of the bullet trains go by, but none were at full tilt.

When our Shinkansen (Sakura SuperExpress 548) arrived, it was only passing through so we had to be snappy about jumping on board. Our bags are too big to fit on the overhead bench, and there is no other storage area, so we have to store them behind the last seat on the car - a little unnerving when there are consistent warnings to notify the staff of unattended baggage. Adelaide read more of her book while I listened to music, and we only made three stops on the way back to Shin-Osaka (the same three we'd made on the way), arriving around 1.45pm.

Watching the world wiz by...

The familiarity of Shin-Osaka station was welcome, but fleeting as we quickly transferred between the Shinkansen terminal, and the JR line to Kyoto. Osaka and Kyoto are very close together, so the JR train only took half an hour. Kyoto station is massive, and we got a little lost looking for the subway. We only had to ride 4 stops on the subway with a single transfer, as it covered a lot of ground.

Spotted: Do not throw your snake in the door... or is that a scarf?

Finding our way out of the Subway station was far easier than finding our way in, and we ended up a block away from our accommodation, Royal Park Hotel The Kyoto (Adelaide and I believe the name "The Kyoto Royal Park Hotel" was taken). It's very ritzy and comfortable, kinda like the Novotel, but not overly expensive - however the rate does increase as we move toward the weekend (the nightly rate almost doubling). It's also quite memorable because it has these creepy wire statues of butlers in the lobby, so we'll always know where at our hotel.

We dropped our bags and sorted out our previous blog post, and did a quick "Sit-rep" with the budget so far and found we were still within our estimate, surprisingly. With tummys grumbling, we headed out for dinner. If only it were so simple.

Due to some peoples' snide remarks, we figured we'd embrace the culture, and hit up the Sushi train across the road for some authentic sushi and sashimi. Adelaide, one not too keen on seafood, tried it but wasn't super impressed, sticking mainly with the vegetable rolls, but picked a candied sweet potato which was delicious. I gave sashimi a go in the form of tuna and salmon, and didn't mind it - although the Wasabi sneakily applied underneath the fish was quite the surprise. After polishing off 12 plates between us, we left and had a post-dinner mozy down the shopping street.

This is when Adelaide developed a sudden garlic-bread craving (Quote Adelaide: "I love garlic"). After some confusion about getting a curry accompanied by garlic naan, we left a Japanese curry establishment, and kept walking, on the search for garlic fulfillment. We also ran into a place that did all you can eat pizza or all you can drink beer for an hour, but didn't serve garlic bread, so we continued our search for garlic fulfillment...

Once we had almost walked down the other end of the mall, we suddenly spied a stick of garlic bread on a french restaurant's front photo. This place (which had quite the name we can't remember), did a pretty loose mix of European food, but had a very passionate atmosphere. The prices weren't too rediculous either, which was surprising. We ordered a half-stick of garlic bread, plus a margherita  pizza, so we didn't look too strange. When ordering drinks, the waitress confirmed with me multiple times that I wanted a "large" beer, before taking the menus.

Big beer for a big thirst!

When she returned with one of the largest glasses of lager I've ever seen, I understood why. The garlic bread soon followed, and Adelaide was happy. The pizza was really yum too and filled us up, whereas the 12 plates of sushi had only seemed like a snack. We left and headed back towards the hotel on the street parallel to the one we headed down. But our feasting wasn't over yet...

On our first trip down the mall, Addy had spied a Cafe that served what looked like a mean chocolate cake, and of course, we had to stop off there for dessert. And so we did. I was getting full at this point so I ordered some chocolate coated pancakes with banana (such a downgrade), and a small coffee, while Adelaide got her desired cake with a hot chocolate (which turned out to be closer to an Italian hot chocolate, with cream on top), and went to chocolate heaven.

Waiting for dessert

After two dinners and dessert, we were about to explode, so we finally headed back across the road to our hotel, and stopped off to check out the hotel bar. The place has quite the selection, so I had to try one of the Japanese whiskys they had - Hibiki 12 year - while Addy had a mojito. Our bartender was very professional, and while we enjoyed our drinks and marveled at the bar (Dad: I have bar-seat envy, I'll take pictures tomorrow), he cut ice into shape from one large rectangular block, an impressive art.

We didn't take many photos today, but that'll change tomorrow when we make the most of a full day of undecided activities - there's so much stuff to choose from! Until then, Goodnight!