Sunday, October 27, 2013
Japan October 2013 - Nagoya to Kyoto (Day 7)
Nagoya. An almost transient stop for us as we only stay here for one night. Fortunately, we managed to at least go to Nagoya Castle yesterday. Hadn't managed to quite get ourselves into the Nagoya underground shopping yet.We should probably have spent another day in Takayama instead of just one day in Nagoya, but we wanted to cover as much as we could (comfortably) in the time that we had in Japan.
After checking out of the hotel in Nagoya, we were on our way to the JR Nagoya station. The Toyoko Inn Nagoya Marunouchi branch has a transport that sends guests to the JR Station in the mornings. In the evening it is the other way round instead. So we took the transport to the JR station, totally skipping the walk yesterday (got lost, seriously cos of laggy GPS! and an impatient and overconfident me).
On our way to the station, we passed by this sign that was rather interesting. In fact, if you read it in Teochew, if would produce the sounds "Na Go Ya".
We got to the station and managed to get our reservations on the Shinkansen which would take us to Kyoto. In the meantime, we manage dto get more shopping done. My friend had been suffering from dry skin since she arrived in Japan and she finally decided that she had to buy some moisturiser. After some careful selection, she settled on her choice while I ended up buying two different sunscreens.
The trip to Kyoto was fairly uneventful as it was a rather short journey of around half and hour on the Shinkansen. The fare would have cost us 2520 JPY and the seat reservation: 2920 for the Hikari, but this was covered under our JR Pass! Our very last squeeze of the JR Pass :D
Once we got to Kyoto, it was really not like Nagoya where we actually got lost. No way lol. Kyoto, to me, is much easier to navigate. We went over to our hotel (Toyoko Inn Kyoto Shijo-karasuma) by the subway and deposited our luggage there under the... ehrm.. possibly watchful eyes of a... rather harried staff. He didn't give our luggage tags to us and I didn't notice. My friend did notice though but I misunderstood what she had meant so..... Anyway, from the hotel, we went off to lunch.
And where did we go to lunch but >> Ippudo!
This time, I had the Tsukemen and it was definitely much more memorable than the last time I had ramen here :D YUMZ!
After lunch, we walked around the area and all the way up to the Imperial Palace grounds. The Imperial palace gardens are open to public, but if you wish to view the palace itself, you have to register or turn up and hope they have slots available during the guided tours. You can go to this website to get more info and register for the tours : http://sankan.kunaicho.go.jp/english/ . We hadn't registered so we contented ourselves with walking around the gardens which was pretty nice and peaceful. Quite a few people wee also out enjoying the day, walking their dogs and what nots. It's a really good way to enjoy life.
As the distance between our hotel and the Imperial Palace was quite far, and we had stopped by quite a few shops and stuff along the way, this easily took us into the evening and we had walked all the way back to the hotel, checked in. We got smoking rooms because there were no more non smoking rooms left when I booked. It was really a smoking room >.>, and the window wouldn't open so I couldn't air it. Grr. Anyway we rested and went out to the konbini to grab some food for the night and ended our day.
Oh, at the konbini I managed to buy some really yummy cuttlefish snacks that I neither took a shot of or remember the name of. It was super yummy!! I hope I can get it again the next time I go. It's from one of the lesser seen konbinis :(
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After checking out of the hotel in Nagoya, we were on our way to the JR Nagoya station. The Toyoko Inn Nagoya Marunouchi branch has a transport that sends guests to the JR Station in the mornings. In the evening it is the other way round instead. So we took the transport to the JR station, totally skipping the walk yesterday (got lost, seriously cos of laggy GPS! and an impatient and overconfident me).
On our way to the station, we passed by this sign that was rather interesting. In fact, if you read it in Teochew, if would produce the sounds "Na Go Ya".
We got to the station and managed to get our reservations on the Shinkansen which would take us to Kyoto. In the meantime, we manage dto get more shopping done. My friend had been suffering from dry skin since she arrived in Japan and she finally decided that she had to buy some moisturiser. After some careful selection, she settled on her choice while I ended up buying two different sunscreens.
The trip to Kyoto was fairly uneventful as it was a rather short journey of around half and hour on the Shinkansen. The fare would have cost us 2520 JPY and the seat reservation: 2920 for the Hikari, but this was covered under our JR Pass! Our very last squeeze of the JR Pass :D
Once we got to Kyoto, it was really not like Nagoya where we actually got lost. No way lol. Kyoto, to me, is much easier to navigate. We went over to our hotel (Toyoko Inn Kyoto Shijo-karasuma) by the subway and deposited our luggage there under the... ehrm.. possibly watchful eyes of a... rather harried staff. He didn't give our luggage tags to us and I didn't notice. My friend did notice though but I misunderstood what she had meant so..... Anyway, from the hotel, we went off to lunch.
And where did we go to lunch but >> Ippudo!
After lunch, we walked around the area and all the way up to the Imperial Palace grounds. The Imperial palace gardens are open to public, but if you wish to view the palace itself, you have to register or turn up and hope they have slots available during the guided tours. You can go to this website to get more info and register for the tours : http://sankan.kunaicho.go.jp/english/ . We hadn't registered so we contented ourselves with walking around the gardens which was pretty nice and peaceful. Quite a few people wee also out enjoying the day, walking their dogs and what nots. It's a really good way to enjoy life.
As the distance between our hotel and the Imperial Palace was quite far, and we had stopped by quite a few shops and stuff along the way, this easily took us into the evening and we had walked all the way back to the hotel, checked in. We got smoking rooms because there were no more non smoking rooms left when I booked. It was really a smoking room >.>, and the window wouldn't open so I couldn't air it. Grr. Anyway we rested and went out to the konbini to grab some food for the night and ended our day.
Oh, at the konbini I managed to buy some really yummy cuttlefish snacks that I neither took a shot of or remember the name of. It was super yummy!! I hope I can get it again the next time I go. It's from one of the lesser seen konbinis :(
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