Got up bright and early for the bullet train trip to Kyoto this morning. Since Diem and Binh were on their own today, they opted to stay longer in Tokyo to take in Asakusa. It’s really too bad we couldn’t stay because Asakusa looked like it would be a lot of fun once all the shops opened.

The rest of us went back to our old hotel where a tour guide packed us into a coach to take us to the Tokyo train station. Touring by coach is quite different from exploring on your own. You’re less likely to know where you are, what the streets are called, why you’re going somewhere, where you’re going or how you’re going to get back. Instead, you sit back, relax and wait for the driver to take you to the next destination. Definitely not my travel style right now.

30 minutes later, sitting in morning traffic in a light drizzle, we arrived at Tokyo station. We didn’t know ahead of time where we were suppose to meet-up at the station, otherwise we could’ve gotten to the station via subway in less than 10 minutes and grabbed breakfast too.

We then boarded the bullet train and our tour guide bade us farewell. As the train got going, it was quite amazing to see the speed of everything passing by. The ride was super smooth, almost as if we were gliding. Usually on a train you can feel the cracks between the tracks as the wheels passed over them. The bullet train is one super smooth rail. It even banks on the turns. The train was very clean on the inside and sleek on the outside. We immediately made ourselves comfortable for the long ride. Veteran train riders now, we even showed some fellow American tour members how to turn the seats around so that they could sit facing their friends and family.

When the food cart came, we got a whole stack of different bento boxes and shared.  Our fellow travelers gave us a funny look as we were given our stack of bento boxes. Most of them had purchased simpler katsu sandwiches and tea, by comparison we were little piggies. But the way I see it, we’re only here once, so might as well try everything.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s so amazing the amount of detail that the Japanese put into their foods. Even thought it was just a simple bento box on the train, the contents of each box were carefully laid out. It looked almost too pretty to eat. The food turned out to be pretty good too, lots of rice balls, pickles, sweet beans, eggs, and some veggies. Jae was afraid to try too many new things and ate mostly from the eel box.

 

 

Soon, we arrived at Kyoto and received by another tour guide who walked us over to the New Miako hotel. Since check-in wasn’t for another hour, we decided to go off on our own and went back to the train station. Kyoto station, as it turns out is HUGE. There is an entire mall built right into it. I think there are literally hundreds of stores and restaurants within the station. We could spend the whole week in the station. We took a break at a pie shop that looked too good to pass up. The pies were around $7-9 a slice and well worth it.

After the pie, we checked in the hotel and collected our luggage. The hotel had fairly good service, sending bellgirls (young and attractive ones) to lug our luggages to the room. I was somewhat fearful because the girls looked so small and frail, I was half afraid that they’d break their back or something lifting our suitcases.