As the song goes: It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old is snoring… however, as he’s making his way from Osaka to Kyoto, the old man isn’t snoring.
We stop for breakfast at Eggs’n’Things, a Hawaiian-themed breakfast chain in Japan. They offer pancakes and waffles topped with more than a foot of whipped cream. You can also order omelettes and some eggs, but it’s a small section of the menu compared to all the other “things” on the menu. It’s protein and some sugar, so we don’t complain.
From there, we jumped on the subway to the nearest station and did our best to buy tickets without help. The machine lacks an English button. We ask for assistance from the information booth and a very friendly attendant walks and buys for the couple of hapless “Gaijin” (derogatory term for foreigners) and that’s where we learn that we could load the “ticket” with the amount indicated by Google’s fare estimate and not bother searching for originating and destination station, quite the time saver for our next adventures.
Ticket in hand, we make our way to Kyoto in a local train. It takes us a little under an hour, and we get off at one station before Kyoto station, as it’s the nearest to the Nest at Nishiki, our hotel for the next couple of days.
We arrived an hour before the official check-in time. We’re given the keys to our room but are told it’s still being prepared, and we should come back at 15:00, the official check-in time, and that everything will be ready by then. We suppose it’s just a polite way to ask foreigners to follow the rules, but they are nice enough to take our bags and have them in our room by the time we’re back.
We set out to explore the Nishiki market. It’s a 350m-long covered street lined with food stalls, just two blocks from our hotel. Most stalls and boutiques seem ready to sell you something to eat while you walk. We do meet food merchants that are set up to sell to locals, or people will take away the food and cook it themselves at least, but, like any place that gets people with tourists, the merchants have their shop in gear to answer that endless source of money. It’s also densely packed with people, so if, like me, you like wearing flip-flops, expect to have people step on your shoes.
We finally stopped by the hotel before heading out for some grilled Wagyu steaks. Stopped at one of the highly rated spots in the market (it’s still pouring, so distance was a decision factor). We had a 200g piece of delicious cow with a side of rice, some picked vegetables and miso. It was tasty, but a little underwhelming, given that the whole experience costs about 140$ CAD for two and lasts 30 minutes. From sitting down to eating the steak in front of us, it was about 8 minutes; the rest was eating the delicious steak and its sides.
Tomorrow we have a busy day planned exploring the sights of Kyoto.