Took an early morning walk today around Shibuya.  I wanted to see the world’s busiest crosswalk in action during the day time.

Shibuya Crossing

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Last Day in the Mountains

Another early breakfast at the ryokan.  It’s another very formal and  traditional type of meal with many small dishes we do not recognize.  We eat quietly, thinking about today’s trip.  We are a bit nervous.  We have a lot of luggage with us, and somehow we must get back to Kyoto to the shinkansen (bullet train) station and then on the train itself, followed by another city train to our hotel in Tokyo where we will meet our housemate and friend (also traveling in Asia) who has just arrived in Tokyo himself.  We have no idea how this is going to work.  A few days earlier, our cab driver promised to be back to pick us up and take us back to Kyoto Station.  We hope he will be true to his word.  It’s hard to imagine that tonight we will be in Tokyo.

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It’s morning.  I awake to the sound of the cicadas in the mountains surrounding us.  My ear hurts – underneath it is a small, hard pillow filled with what feels like plastic pellets.  Light from the window.  The smell of the tatami floor.  It’s almost surreal waking up like this, so far removed from everything at the ryokan we are staying at.  It’s early, so I will have a walk around outside before breakfast is served and the girls are awake.  Early morning light is good for photography.

Kaede, Our Room’s Name

Kurama Onsen

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Today was our last day staying at the hotel Granvia at Kyoto Station.  We decided to try the hotel’s western breakfast buffet to celebrate.  Overpriced and not spectacular, the breakfast did include more pastries which I love to eat in Japan, at least.  Sarah started to feel sick half way through.  Overall going out for breakfast in Japan isn’t really the thing to do.  Most Japanese eat breakfast at home and it’s mostly homemade stuff like soup and fish, etc.  The only other option is a cafe or coffee shop… expensive coffee, juice and pastry or a light sandwich are common breakfast type things to eat.

We checked out and decided to explore the area surrounding the station before getting a cab to Kurama Onsen where we would be staying for the next two nights.  Kurama is a ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) and onsen (hot springs) located in the mountains north of Kyoto.  We’d stay there for a couple of nights and then go to Tokyo via the shinkansen bullet train.

Last Walk Around Kyoto Station

After walking around a bit, we picked up some pastries and I got this bottle of cold coffee.  There are many, many variations of cold coffee to be found in Japan.  Most of them taste good.  This one was no exception.  I love Japan’s bottled and canned drinks.

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Today’s plan was to meet with an online friend and fellow photographer / blogger / Nikon addict Jeffrey Friedl, who lives in Kyoto.  Jeffrey is an accomplished author (he wrote a successful book about programming regular expressions) as well as a prolific blogger and photographer.  He graciously offered to pick us up at our hotel at 10 and take us up into the mountains for the morning.

Before that, however, I was up early again.  I am finding it extremely easy to get up and get going here in Japan.  The girls still asleep, I decided to take another morning walk and see what sights were around Kyoto Station today.  It looked like it had rained.  I saw some interesting characters loitering about as well.

Morning Walk

I headed back to the hotel to have some breakfast and see if I could wake the girls.  We had purchased some inari sushi during yesterday’s shopping trip (safely stored in the mini fridge) so we decided to have that for a morning snack.  Inari sushi is delicious… fried tofu, sushi rice and a sweet sesame sauce.  We love it.  We bought it at one of the basement grocery stores in a department store nearby.

Pieces of Inari Sushi

After this snack and a quick trip back to Cafe Du Monde for more delicious egg sandwhiches, it was time to meet up with Jeffrey.  He was already waiting for us when we headed to the pick-up area under the hotel.  I’d never met Jeffrey in person and that is always a little unusual but instantly he made us all feel welcome.  We took a drive up into the mountains north of Kyoto, talking along the way about some of his experiences in Japan and his adorable boy Anthony (who’s antics are often featured on Jeffrey’s blog)  I mentioned we were staying at a ryokan (traditional japanese inn) and hot spring nearby.  Jeffrey suggested we stop by and check up on the place.  This turned out to be a good idea as we got a sense of where we would be headed next and we were able to make sure the reservation was intact.

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