Kyoto food, accommodation and Karaoke -

We arrived in Kyoto on the bullet train which took just over 2 hours. The journey was very pleasant and we also managed to get the good view of Mount Fuji that we’d missed the day before. We arrived at the new, impressive Kyoto station building and once again the tourist office helped us book accommodation straight away! We’d already booked 2 nights in a nice hotel as part of the train package…and the room was just like a nice western hotel. It was close to here that Vanessa (on her usual quest for ensuring that we had the complete lowdown on fine dining in the area) found a restaurant with a great all you can eat…and wait for it, all you can drink buffet! It was all self-service and included pulling your own pints and making your own cocktails which we rightfully abused.



In fact Kyoto continued the high quality of cuisine, if not bettering Tokyo. One of our best meals of our trip so far was served in a small and authentic back street restaurant specializing in traditional Kyoto cuisine. The plate was a picture and the food exquisite!

Other great food we tried included small octopus tentacles cooked in egg and served in a small ball with a sweet sauce on top, different types of tofu (which Kyoto is also famous for), and the cheapest and best variety sushi train that we’d found in Japan. So cheap that we ate tons! Including as a dare to ourselves these little raw and slimy creatures you can see in the picture.











This was usually followed by an hour (always extended to an hour and a half’s) karaoke. A new venue opened up as we were there and on our last day, we checked it out…it beamed pictures onto the wall and everything and we had a great time…including an awesome rendition by Vanessa of, “I like big butts – Sir Mixalot” you’ve never seen anything like it!












Kyoto like Tokyo was also full of vending machines on the street where you could get anything form cola to green tea and coffee – yes, amazingly hot tea and coffee in a can. You’ll never see anything like it in the UK...they’d be vandalized in seconds.

Following our 2 night treat in a hotel we moved over to another traditional Ryokan booked for us by the tourist office. Now, the weather in Kyoto was certainly colder than Tokyo, but the heat in our new Ryokan was non-existent. We managed to bear it for two nights before explaining to the old lady that ran the place that it was just too cold. She struggled to understand as she came upto our room wearing furry slippers and a huge head to toe puffer jacket! Anyway, we managed to get some of our money back – feeling a little guilty as she’d changed her mood and policy the next day by putting a few heaters on – and moved to a new place called the Tourist Inn. This was much better and also had more atmosphere and more people staying there. It was really cosy and had a nice Japanese bath also. Now, Japanese baths are actually very small in length, but they’re much deeper which means you can easily sit down and I think maybe I prefer them to just normal western baths.