I woke up with a mild headache, but not because of the hotel environment. It was a jetlag headache...fun. But I couldn't let that hold me back. We had a country to explore. We packed our belongings and headed down to the main floor. Yet again, no staff in sight. We went to a larger kiosk and began the checkout procedure. Once Ryan deposited the room key in the machine, That large T-rex that was dormant the first night roared to life...literally. It thanked us for our stay and hoped to see us again. That hotel was quite an experience to say the least.
Our stay in Tokyo was brief, but that's because we were saving it for the end of the trip. Kyoto was our destination and we were about to embark on a world famous mode of transportation. The bullet train. Now I knew about them for many years and had seen videos here and there, but to experience them is something else. Let me paint you a picture. Kyoto is roughly 6.5 hours from Tokyo by car. That's basically Cleveland to NYC or Cleveland to Chicago (depending on how slow you drive). The common option is to take a plane. That consists of buying a ticket months in advance (about $160-$200), getting to the airport a couple hours early, going through TSA, waiting to board, the time it takes to board, the 1.5 hour duration of the flight, and finally, the time it takes to deplane and leave the airport. Now imagine walking up to the ticket counter the day you want to leave. Then you choose the available times you want to leave, some of which can be 30 min from ticket purchase. You pay $90 for a ticket. Then you go straight to the platform when it's time to depart. No security checkpoints and your train is there and ready to go. You get straight on and find your seat. The train departs literally at its departure time. And your off. The world becomes a slight blur as the train gets up to close to 200mph. You gaze out large windows at the passing countryside. Before you know it, 2 hours have gone by and you've arrived. What is such a pain in the butt in the US makes long distance travel a cake walk in Japan. Bullet trains are an incredible first world mode of transportation and there needs to be a way to eventually make them work here.
Two hours later we arrived in Kyoto. A city with so much vibrancies, color and history. The city is over 1200 years old which was nuts when I thought about it. America is still a baby compared to the rest of the world and being able to say I wandered city founded over 1000 years ago was pretty sweet.
We couldn't check into the hotel until 3PM so we began a daily travel routine consisting of the following steps: 1) Leave hotel and get transportation to the next destination. 2) Arrive and find some lockers to stow our carry on luggage for a chunk of the day. 3) Find food and then explore. 4) Get luggage from lockers and go check into the hotel. 5) Take a rest break. 6) Go back out, explore, get dinner, and explore some more. 7) Return to hotel to get some sleep. Rinse and repeat. The lockers I mentioned are a very convenient for this type of travel. The ones we found usually cost $4-$6 for the majority of the day. When you bounce to a new city each day, but can't check into a hotel, those lockers are clutch.
After we got off the bullet train and set foot in Kyoto, we found some lockers just outside the station. Lucky for me, there was a geocache nearby. So once we stored our bags, we went across the street and over to the base of some stairs. A short search later and I had found my first geocache in Japan. It was a nice size container as well. Travel had us famished, so we decided for a familiar place, but with a new cultural experience. We headed straight for the Golden Arches themselves...McDonalds. I decided to compare what I normally get in the US with how it's served here. I ordered a McDouble, a McChicken, fries, and an iced tea. Let me tell you. This is now the second country I've been in that does McDonald's food better than we do. The buns on the burger and sandwich were golden and fluffy and not brown and smashed. And they tasted excellent. The fries weren't soggy like they sometimes are here. The iced tea was different too. It's Earl Grey instead of the black tea we use here. Add in the Japanese hospitality where the workers were constantly keeping everything clean and taking care of you, McDonald's Japan does it right.
With full stomachs, it was time to begin exploring. We decided to start with the Kyoto Pokemon Center because being 90s kids, we grew up with the loveable pocket monsters and in our 30s, we still haven't outgrown them. In the game, a Pokemon center was a place to heal your Pokemon after battle. Here, it was the largest store of Pokemon paraphernalia anywhere. If you wanted shirts, hats, cards, figurines, keychains, stickers, plushies, and basically any type of Pokemon collectibles you could think of, you could get it here. While this was our first visit to one of these centers, we planned to stop at one in each city we went to. A must do for any Pokemon fan.
Next we made our first cultural stop of the trip. The To-Ji temple. It was founded in 796 and was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1994. This was my first time seeing ancient temples and a pagoda in person. The pagoda was built in 1643 and was destroyed and rebuilt 4 times, the 4th being its current state. Standing at 180ft high, it is the tallest wooden tower in Japan. It was a marvel to be standing at its base and seeing it tower high above me. It was quite peaceful wandering the grounds, amongst the trees and the pond, simply realizing that I was on ancient grounds, seeing the wonders people from over a thousand years ago created. And this wouldn't be the last. I should also note that you could enter a number of the buildings and shrines without charge. If you've never seen large Buddha statues up close, they dwelt in places like this. And they were big.
Since Kyoto is loaded with places of cultural relevance like To-Ji, we went to explore more. We decided to catch a local bus to our next stop. It only cost 200 yen ($1.30) USD and was supposed to be quick...but we got caught in something very unexpected. We were about halfway to our destination when we came upon a large crowd of people in white robes. Hoisted on the shoulders of a cluster of them was what I would describe as a carriage without wheels, but in a square shape. It's actually called a Mikoshi, which is a palanquin used for religious ceremonies. We thought we were going to pass right on by, but suddenly, police appeared and stopped traffic. For the next 10-15 minutes, the people in robes marched around the intersection, chanting and carrying the Mikoshi. Traffic was stopped. Surprisingly, nobody on the bus said a word. Even the bus driver sat there in pure patience. I couldn't get a good read on what he locals were feeling, but I was a mix between fascinated and annoyed. While it was a random cultural experience that was very interesting to witness, I'm not a fan of anything that holds up traffic, especially when I'm stuck in it. But since We weren't in a rush to be anywhere and in a foreign country, it wasn't the end of the world. The things you see in Japan.
We eventually made it to the next temple and it was smaller than the To-Ji, but still interesting to see. Then it was back to the hotel for a brief rest before heading back out to get a bite to eat. I'm glad I brought my windbreaker that deflects the rain pretty well as the skies had opened up. The rain wasn't heavy, but it was enough that the windbreaker was a gamechanger. And since the restaurant wasn't far, from the hotel, we decided to walk it. Once we arrived, I noticed right away that even though it was small, this place was a popular tourist spot as I noticed most of the diners were foreigners. We were taken to a table on the second floor that overlooked the main floor. The server spoke some english as was a pretty chill dude. The menu was on the smaller side and most of the food was actually more western than Japanese. I wasn't super hungry so I ordered what was called Mexican Potatoes. These turned out to french fries covered in beef and a sauce. Almost like poutine, but not quite. I did end up spilling some of the sauce on my pants, which left a couple of stains. That was not ideal as I didn't have any stain remover on me so this pair of shorts didn't get worn the rest of the trip.
After dinner, we went and explored a bit of modern Kyoto at night. We stopped by the Kyoto Tower, which was all lit up in multiple colors. It looks very similar to the Seattle Space needle and it was probably modeled after it as the Space Needle was built in 1961 and the Kyoto Tower was built in 1963. This was one of the only high points we actually did not go inside nor up. But it was still cool to see lit up in the dark. We ended up wandering up to an observation deck nearby to get a higher view of the area, and high observation points are always a plus in my book. Eventually, we decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel to get some rest, as we had big plans for the next day of our Kyoto adventure. First day in Japan was a great success.
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