Goodbye Kyoto, Hello Tokyo

origamiunicorn ♦ August 3, 2018 ♦ 1 Comment

Laundry

My last morning in Kyoto I got up early, had the same breakfast as the day before at Maeda Coffee, and set out to do some laundry. I have made great strides in conversational Japanese, but my reading skills still leave a lot to be desired. Even with Google Translate, the washing machine instructions were incomprehensible so I took a guess and luckily I didn’t overflow the laundromat with suds or shrink all my clothes to Barbie-doll size.

While waiting for the dryer to finish, I went for one last walk around the Kiyomizu area. I bought a few more souvenirs and treated myself to honey ice cream with Yuzu.

Goodbye Kyoto

At checkout, Raito asked for my email address and Shusui friended me on Facebook. We took pictures and said we’d stay in touch.

Shinkansen

I took the Shinkansen from Kyoto to Tokyo. I was able to get a window seat on the Mt. Fuji side, but the cloud cover and haze was too think to see it. I have yet to see Mt. Fuji so I guess I will have to plan to go back to Japan again in the future. The day I finally see Fuji-san I think I will probably cry with joy.

Bento box lunch on the Shinkansen

Tokyo

After arriving at Tokyo station, I took the JR rail and then the subway to the area where my cousin lives. He met me near his apartment building, got me settled and gave me a key, and then had to go back to work.

I wandered around the area and found a small restaurant that looked good. I went in and tried to sit at the counter and was directed to what looked like a vending machine with a touch screen display. I realized that you order and pay ahead of time. The display was entirely in Japanese, but fortunately there were pictures. I ordered a beer and udon – my staple.

I stopped at Family Mart on the way back and got coffee, bread and bananas, my breakfast staples. I fell asleep staring at the lights of Tokyo from my bedroom window.