Japan Day 1 - Kyoto

On the 22nd of May 2019 I woke up at 6am to catch my flight to Japan. It involved a 4 hour layover in Munich and 3 amazing airplane meals.

At roughly midday on the 23rd May I ran into Kaz's arms romantically. She had arrived 5 hours earlier (ouch) and politely waited around in the airport for me. We were both jet lagged and hangred (hungry + angry + tired),  but very relieved to see each other.

We activated our JR pass and immediately took a monorail and train to a station in Tokyo called Shinigawa station where we took a bullet train to Kyoto. That's right, no time to explore Tokyo yet, we'll be doing that by the end of our trip.

I ticked off the two things on my list within an hour of landing in Japan. I purchased green tea from a vending machine and I used a Japanese toilet.

When we arrived in Kyoto, I forced Kaz to waddle through the streets with me to our accommodation; I was done with sitting down on public transport. The thing which strikes me most interesting about Japan is how clean it is. There wasn't a single piece of plastic floating around. All the streets were as small and cramped as Jakarta, yet as tidy and well kept as Delft. Every anime I had ever watched was right; each house was small and unique. Very nice :)

We rested up in our accommodation for a few hours after arriving, then hit the town to explore. We read on trip adviser that Ippudo was a fantastic restaurant to enjoy. I guess every one else had read that same trip adviser recommendation because there was a huge line filled with white people out the front. Undeterred we ate at the restaurant and met up with an American accountant from New York / Chicago called Ben. The company was great and the food was phenomenal - pork broth ramen with dumplings. The bar has been raised quite high. After the meal we walked around Kyoto for a bit longer with Ben. We got to see a few temples and a small district / ward famous for Geisha's (the Japanese women who dress entirely in white). We also walked past mini casino which had all the worst parts of a normal casino, and none of the good parts. The giant room will filled with small slot machines and were being used almost exclusively by the elderly and a few business men. Each slot machine blasted out memorable tunes and flashy lights and the whole place stank of cheap beer and cigarette smoke. It looks like the Japanese like to gamble.

The jet lag was hitting us (me) pretty hard so after that we ordered an icecream from a vending machine and marched our way back to the hotel to crash.