Day 8 of 15, Takayama to Kyoto

After breakfast, we had time to spare before checking out, so we took a morning stroll. It was drizzling.

An electronic hour glass traffic light

We walked to the Jinya mae Morning Market. It’s a very small market, maybe about 4 short rows. Selling mostly vegetables and fruit.

You’ll soon find out, fruit in Japan is damn expensive! 1 peach costs at least 300YEN, that’s around AUD4, and that’s RM12… just for ONE PEACH. And the better peaches can cost up to 1000YEN…. that’s like RM30 for one peach.

So we had a look at the fuji apples, thinking that it’s a local product, and maybe it’s cheaper… 1 fuji apple is 400YEN. Still want to eat fruit in Japan?

We actually felt fruit deprived in Japan.

Their pumpkins come in every different shape, size and colour. Very cute.

Mini brinjals. They are not more than 10cm long.

Bought their famous Hida Beef Pau. Very expensive! 360YEN each (AUD 4.60), that’s around RM15.

Took a photo of the restaurant that we ate last night.

After this, went back to our ryokan, checked out, and went to the train station to catch a train to Kyoto!

Takayama Station

Getting ready to attach an incoming train

The incoming train to be attached to the other one

Bye Bye Takayama! We love you! Would loveeeee to come back in Winter ^^

Fields of Buckwheat

Just a reminder to ourselves never to buy black coffee… no sugar, no milk…  bluerk~!

Beautiful sceneries on the way to Nagoya

From Takayama to Kyoto, we have to catch a connecting train in Nagoya. And the time between arriving Nagoya and catching the next train was only 6 minutes. Don’t think 6 minutes is enough time for us to go look for lunch to eat in the train. So we bought our bento sets from Takayama Station. From Takayama to Kyoto, takes about 3.5 hours.

Mat got himself this set. The packaging is so nice. Then when you open it, the food looks so beautiful.

We finally understood the definition of “Eating with your Eyes”.

My bento set. So pwetty~!

Arrived Kyoto at nearly 1pm.

We made Kyoto as a base, because I found an extremely reasonably priced accommodation to stay, with the minimum day rental of 7 days. You’ll learn why we made Kyoto as a base in my following posts.

This apartment is going to be our home for the next 7 days.

To enter our unit, the process very canggih (high tech) one. First, we have to open our letter box like opening a safety box (of course the code was provided), to get the key to enter the main door of the apartment.

Then, we have to key-in a pin number to open our unit door. Very very canggih! Don’t even need a key.  Everytime we managed to open something, we both go … wahhhh~~…. especially this one… felt really really jakun.

Everybody go… waahhhhh~~~~

Entering the door, we were greeted with the laundry room, the kitchen…

… and the bathroom.

Then opening the next door, is the living room/study room/bedroom…. all in one. We have to rearrange the chair and table, pull out the sofa, lay the futon, every night before we sleep. And have to rearrange it all back again the next morning. We got the hang of it by the 3rd day.

I was very impressed with this apartment actually. With the amount of money I paid… I got everything that a normal hotel will provide, and more. There’s:

microwave, rice cooker, electric water kettle, washing machine (we washed our clothes everyday), clothes dryer (even though it doesn’t seem to work very well drying clothes), hangers, FREE internet…. and even a vacuum cleaner!

We bought the clothes washing detergent from the convenience store. 1 box of 10 sachets…. conveniently packed… that’s why I wash clothes everyday!

They even provided towels, face towels, and the kitchen had all the basic necessities, like plates, bowls, chopsticks, ladle, pots and pans, knife, cloth to wipe your sink, dish washing detergent, and even rubbish bags.

The only service that is not provided is a cleaner to come and clean and tidy your room and change new towels everyday. You have to separate your rubbish properly, and put into appropriate rubbish bags, and take them out on specified days. All the information is provided in a folder in the apartment. VERY VERY COMPLETE… once again, impressed!

And then…. we were met with reality.

Why I said that…. this is how a typical Japanese live. We were going to live it for 7 days!

This is what we see from the balcony. Can hang clothes there to dry as well.

We saw a brochure in our apartment promoting the Manga Museum. It’s pretty near our apartment. We were both pretty excited to visit this museum. Thinking that we can see an impressive collection of manga characters, and maybe buy some manga merchandise… we were deeply dissappointed.

This museum is NOT WORTH GOING!

It only consists of manga… literally manga. And 99% in Japanese. It should actually be called a Manga Library. There was only a handful of manga characters, and the merchandise selection is pathetic. Unless you can read Japanese, and is a pure Manga fanatic, your ticket can be used for unlimited entry for the day. You can sit in there the whole day just to read manga.

In the manga museum… I heard someone call my name, “Flora”. While my eyes was looking at all the manga collection, I was thinking, did I just hear my name? So I decided to turn around… the person who called me, suddenly made Kyoto SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO small! I couldn’t believe it! This encounter, made the world soooooo small. I shan’t tell you who I met…. you’ll know in the next post. Sorry for the suspense.

Disappointment with the museum, and still speechless from the encounter…. we continued walking the streets of Kyoto.

Some school kids walking together

After spending a week in Japan, today we just felt physically and mentally drained.

Kyoto City Hall

We decided to call it a day, ditched all our planned itinerary for the day, get some dinner from our best friends (convenience stores), go home and have a relaxing dinner, sleep early, recharge up nicely, ready for another full-on week ahead. I think it was a wise decision.

Our dinner, bought from convenience store, with a few cans of alcohol free beer ^^

I remembered the moment I touched my head on the pillow that night at 8pm, I was already in lala land.

Once again peeps, have a great and blessed weekend! See you next Monday.

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