Kyoto part one

After a couple of pleasant days in Tokyo we jumped on the Shinkansen to Kyoto. The highlight of this trip was the little boy in the seat next to us, he was about two, had a Thomas The Tank Engine top on and a backpack, and in his hand was what we thought was a toy Shinkansen but come lunchtime it became clear that this was in fact his bento box.

We liked the Shinkansen bento box so much that we bought one each

The hotel was the Mercure Kyoto Station and it was really quite lovely, about 10 minutes walk and in a very quiet neighbourhood down some tiny streets.

That afternoon we walked to and explored the To-Ji temple which includes a 5 storied wooden pagoda, the tallest of it’s kind in Japan.

You could go inside but you couldn’t take pictures.

Day two in Kyoto was quite cold and rainy so we took the hop on hop off bus for a tour around the city, getting off at the Imperial Palace which was quite impressive and we learned a bit of history about the various Emperors and the Shogun era. Kyoto used to be the capital of Japan from 794 to 1868.

Part of the garden at the Imperial Palace

The next day we went to the Kyoto Railway museum which was about 20 minutes walk from the hotel, and is where we bought our bento boxes.

Pauline in front of the first Shinkansen

It’s a big museum but I guess train museums have to be!

In the afternoon after eating our bento lunch we took a look at this working Buddhist temple which was just around the road from the hotel and was at least as impressive as all the others but only 5 mins walk away 😀

This gate was right next to the temple, it was rather impressive

In the evening we took a guided Kyoto foodie tour which was in the Gion Shiju historic area of Kyoto. The guide was a young student and she was very charming and took us to three different places, a small restaurant to start with, then a tiny bar where I had sake and some meat skewers, and a desert restaurant. We learned a bit about chopstick etiquette!