Tasmania to Tokyo – Tokyo – Day 70 can be found here.
There are days for contemplation and reflection, and there are days when you need to board a steel cylinder that’s poised to hurtle along the ground at roughly 320 kilometers per hour (200 miles per hour).
Today is the latter.
Up at 8 am, buffet breakfast, and then swinging by the front desk to checkout. This was an expensive hotel, but well worth it – it’s been comfortable, it’s centrally located, and it has stellar views. And the rooms are spacious enough for us and our luggage – no mean feat given our number of suitcases and the typical size of Japanese hotel rooms.
The only downside is that it it’s not really part of any neighbourhood, and you’re not terribly close to the subway system. That’s less of an issue for us, as we’ve rapidly become addicted to Japan’s Go app – which lets us quickly and easily page taxis.
Bottom line – we enjoyed mesm, and we would stay here again should we return to Tokyo anytime soon.
On the subject of taxis, we need one more to take us to the Tokyo Shinkansen station – and thankfully only one more, as we forwarded much of our luggage on to Kyoto in advance. It’s been a pain trying to get by without our checked bags, but well worth it to not have to manoeuvre that much luggage around the train station.
There are also real limits as to how much luggage you can bring onto the shinkansen trains – and typically it’s only the last row of seats per train car with room for ‘oversized’ baggage (read: normal checked baggage sized). And even then, there’s a limit of one bag per person – so it wasn’t an option for us regardless. (Unless we somehow managed to dress our duffle bag up as a person and buy a seat for ‘him.’ And we shall name him George.)
The taxi soon pulls up to the Japan Rail station – and we are asked to get out in the middle of traffic, which is not our favourite method of disembarkation. Though the driver did choose a quiet-ish section of the eight lane on which to let us out, and no one actually got hit by another car.
There are two different sets of shinkansen tracks, so we simply look for the one with our train number. The board says our train is bound for Hakata, and does not specifically mention the stop at Kyoto – but that’s typical for Japanese train routes. The train number and departure time match up, so that’s confirmation enough that we’re in the right spot.
We are fortunately – and unfortunately – there quite early, and there’s very little space available in the waiting room. We wait in line for the bathrooms, then head up to the waiting area on the platform. There’s also a shortage of seats here, but we find a ledge by the window to rest against.
Perhaps 10 minutes before the train arrives, we get into position – we are in car 9, which is one of the premium ‘Green’ cars with larger and reserved seats. There’s a corresponding section on the platform which is where we line up.
It all goes pretty much as you’d expect – the train pulls up, we board, smaller roller bags go in the overhead bins, and we are on our way.
The only quirk is that there are no dedicated USB outlets – you have to use a regular power plug instead. Thankfully I borrow my wife’s power converter so that I can keep my fast-draining iPhone from running completely dead while enroute. That’s what I get for not upgrading for two whole years…
There’s also a selection of snacks available for Green car passengers. I pick up a couple of different snacks:
Including a selection of cheese and meat:
And an apple pie:
Not too bad – despite the raisins
It’s a perfectly adequate light snack – though if I were to travel by shinkansen again, I’d likely pay closer attention to some of the excellent bento boxes I see being opened by more seasoned passengers. (Guess our collection of Kit Kats and other assorted treats will have to do.)
We attempt to get some photos of Mount Fuji, but unfortunately it is completely wrapped in clouds today. But we do manage to get some video of the trip itself:
I always it vaguely unsettling to look out the windows of a shinkansen. Telephone poles are not meant to pass that quickly.
Time passes, and we soon arrive in Kyoto – a little more than two hours after our train first set out. Very civilized, indeed.
Less so the process of leaving the station. It appears one of the scanners for the main exit has broken, so we head to a side exit instead. But that puts us out far from the taxi stand, so we have to wander around the station. (Though I think it was still faster than going out the main exit.)
We reach the taxi stand, and discover that there are two taxi line-ups – one is ‘Foreigner friendly taxi’ and the other is simply marked ‘Taxi’. The ‘Taxi’ line is much shorter, so that’s where we head. We have the Royal Park Hotel Iconic pulled up on Google Maps, so we have zero trouble communicating where we want to go.
During the taxi ride, I check on our airtags to see if our pre-shipped bags have arrived yet – and it looks like they have! Oh, how I wish this system existed in other parts of the world. It is immensely, immensely helpful.
We’re dropped at our hotel roughly 25 minutes later. Could we have taken the subway? Probably, and it would have been cheaper. Was it a big enough price difference to matter? No, it was not. We’re just glad that we’re here!
Photo Credit: Royal Park Hotel Iconic
The hotel is nice, though not quite as impressive as the mesm in Tokyo. That’s understandable, considering it costs roughly half as much. We’re also pleased to hear that they have managed to arrange for adjacent rooms and that our bags have arrived and been loaded inside.
Beyond the usual amenities – free internet and so on – there is also a lounge in which afternoon tea is served between 2 and 5 pm, at which point it switches to evening cocktails. Both are included as part of your stay. And there are separate men’s and women’s onsen on the second floor, too. I’d really like to make it there, time permitting.
We also ask if they might be able to arrange a van to take us to the airport on April 1st, when we depart for Hokkaido. The clerk promises to look into it for us.
We head up to the rooms, but completely forget to photograph the kids’ room before their suitcases exploded. Oops.
But here’s our room:
The view is nothing stellar – just a peek into the nearest building – but the shower is fabulous, with more pressure than many car washes.
Time for a late lunch. The hotel’s official lunch hours end at 2 pm, but they do run an afternoon cafe with a limited menu. But with options like croque monsier and French toast with ice cream, I think we’ll find something every will enjoy.
After much debate, we all end up getting the croque monsier:
It’s one of the best I’ve ever had.
Midway through lunch, the Iconic’s clerk returns with some unfortunate news – we have left it too late, and there are no large vans available for transfers. Our options are to take the first-come-first-serve bus or to book in with two taxis at a cost of 50,000 yen (USD$315). Neither is particularly appealing, but we can take a day to think it over before we book the taxi.
We then head upstairs for afternoon tea:
Photo Credit: Royal Park Hotel Iconic instagram
There is an exceptional sweet shop on site run by Patisserie Sadaharu AOKI Paris Karasuma Oike – which means that you get treats such as these every afternoon:
It’s all very good, but the lemon cheesecake is one of the best I’ve ever had.
They come in a little trunk too, which is quite impressive:
While at tea, I decide to ask our guide for Monday’s tour – who goes by Dice – whether he or any of his colleagues might be able to take us to the airport. I send him a message on WhatsApp, and firmly cross my fingers.
From here we decide to stretch our legs with a walk out to Kyoto Geon National Garden. We hit the streets of Kyoto:
And get to witness some slice-of-life moments, like when the kids are leaving a music school and waving goodbye to a favourite staff member. It’s quite lovely.
Less than 10 minutes later, we’re at the park:
Kyoto is supposed to be roughly four days behind Tokyo in terms of sakura blossoms, but these trees look to be roughly on par with those we saw before we left. That means we should be right around peak.
I’ve promised my wife to keep it to 10 or fewer sakura photos.
This one counts as a photo of an Imperial Palace, right?
They really are stunning.
And the scale of these trees is remarkable.
They also do a good job of fencing off the trees to protect them, helping provide clear sightlines.
But soon it’s time to start heading back.
Why the quick return, you ask? Well, we started laundry at the hotel just before we left – so I need to get back to check on it. I’m already missing Silversea’s free laundry…
Not all of the trees are in full bloom, though – so plenty of blossoms yet to come for future visitors:
Even the bushes have gotten into the spirit of it all:
One last shot of this beautiful park:
And it’s time to go.
I head back to check on our laundry:
It’s a combo washer dryer – and unfortunately the laundry still feels very damp. I fear I might have overloaded the machine, which is known to happen when you’re attempting to wash laundry for four people.
We’d wondered how well the hotel’s laundrette was going to work, so we already placed an order with Fuwarabo to pick up the remaining two massive bags of laundry we still have left. They should be able to pick up tomorrow for drop off on Monday, two days from now. (Usually they can do next day, but we left it just a little too late despite what they claim on their website.)
In the mean time, I still have to deal with this damp load of laundry – so I add some time to the dryer and we head off for dinner at Menya Yakou:
Photo Credit: Yakou Kivo
We thought 6 pm would be early enough to beat the rush, but there’s already a line out the door. Thankfully they take our orders while we’re still waiting, so our food will be ready shortly after we’re seated.
We wait for perhaps 20 minutes before we’re shown to our seats upstairs. My wife and I have the pork ramen with the works:
Our daughter gets the wagyu ramen:
And our son gets the chicken ramen:
It is fabulous – absolutely worth the wait, and still very reasonably priced despite the premium ingredients they use.
We return to the hotel again to find our laundry still damp – and it’s only now that I realize that these aren’t the usual air dryers that we use in Canada, but instead rely on spin and heat. So it’s unlikely that the clothes are going to get any drier than they are currently. Out comes the laundry.
We have also heard from Dice at this point, who has very kindly agreed to run us out to the airport for a mere 20,000 yen – much less expensive than the 50,000 yen that we would need to pay for two separate taxis.
The drawback is that we will again need to ship some luggage on ahead of us to ensure that all of our worldly belongings will actually fit in a single van. And that needs to happen late on Sunday, as we will be out all day on Monday – so Fuwarabo unfortunately will not work for us after all. We write to them with our appologies, and they quickly confirm the cancellation. Love the idea for their service, though – next time!
But that leaves us with the problem of how to deal with the rest of our laundry – so we take this load up, and run two more in the now-empty machines.
And how to pass the time in the interim? We head back up to the lounge for cocktail hour.
Yes, there is actually a fire with which to enjoy your complimentary wine! (Photo Credit: Royal Hotel Park Iconic)
We meet some of our fellow guests, who are considering a cruise – we wax poetic regarding the wonders of Silversea and of the many merits of a fine sea day. (And also of the miraculous curative powers of Bonine.)
But the laundry soon is done, and it’s time to call it a night. A relaxed start to the morning, as we only have a private tea ceremony on the books for tomorrow – but who knows what other mischief we might get into with a free afternoon?