Kyoto Bound

No sleeping in today! We were up looking for breakfast by 8am. It was once again not great - sub par coffee. We loaded up on snacks and lunch from the station minimart for our train trip to Kyoto. Back on the Yamabiko Shinkansen bound for Tokyo - a mere 130km away. 

Tokyo station was busy but we found the Hikari Shinkansen fairly easily. We deliberately choose the seats on the right side on the train in hope to see Mt Fuji as we flitted by. Unfortunately Mt Fuji had a cloud hat on, making the top obscured from our view.

Once at Kyoto we transferred to the JR local line for one station, then walked the 700m to our accomodation, a 100 year old Kyomachiya, a traditional townhouse made of wood. The small courtyard garden was beautiful. Inside the two storey townhouse, the lower level had a Japanese style bedroom with tatami mats, the kitchen, bathroom and laundry (combined), separate toilet and the living room including a Japanese floor table! The second storey had two bedrooms - a traditional Japanese tatami (which was not  set up) and a twin room western style plus a toilet. Apart from retaining very little heat, and the requirement of sitting on the floor, the townhouse was an enjoyable place to stay and well located to explore Kyoto.

The afternoon was still young, so we decided to explore Fushmi Inari Taisha. Last time we were here (8 years ago - post here ) it was very cold. We came straight from the train station following the normal tourist route through the Senbon Torii and continuing to climb with the girls only making it to the Yotsu-tsuji intersection. This time around I was very keen to complete the circuit to the top of Mt Inari. 

From the residential streets, we entered the forest from the north, stumbling across a section of nice bamboo forest. After a short while we joined the tourist route on the backside of the top circuit and continuing in a clockwise direction we made it to the summit of Mt Inari. There were loads of torii gates, foxes (kitsune) and sub shrines. Many photos were taken! On the way down, we were keen to stop for coffee at Vermillion, a cafe we remembered from our last trip so made a beeline hoping to arrive before closing time. Unfortunately google had given us a bum steer and although we made our deadline, the coffee shop had closed an hour earlier than advertised!

A short trip back on the train with a visit to the supermarket for supplies. Dinner was an eat in affair of soba noodles, eggs, salad and meat with the water for the noodles taking an incredibly long time to boil!