Since I will be leaving in ten days, I wanted to get back to Kyoto, the most interesting place for me. I got very lucky, the Palace Side Hotel had a cancellation and I was able to get a room for tonight and tomorrow night in addition to my previous reservation. I think their having space is an ominous sign. It’s a popular hotel, usually fully booked.
I am writing on the train, again, and the rain has finally come. Fortunately it was still dry when I left Yokohama. The rain is moving from southwest to northeast, and I am moving in the opposite direction. Maybe I’ll get lucky and it will be finished when I get to Kyoto. The sky is very dark now and the rain hitting the train makes a loud noise, although it doesn’t seem to get the windows; probably because we move too fast.
I found Yokohama to be a very difficult place. Getting to my hotel when I first arrived turned into a nightmare. The hotel was a five minute walk from the East Exit of Yokohama Station. I don’t remember whether the man at the tourist office at Shin Yokohama Station (got that: another station) mentioned East Exit, but by the time I finished that awful lunch and got to the second station, if I ever knew, I had forgotten. When I asked for help I was given two different maps, mostly in Japanese, neither of which had the hotel on it. Each was marked with vague directions. No one mentioned East Exit; no one told me there were three levels to the station and I was on the wrong one. After wandering around the station and arriving at the West Exit three separate times, schlepping the suitcase, very tired and ready to cry, I took a taxi; ten dollars to go around the station. This was the first of several communication blips.
Somewhere I read there was a lot of English in use in Yokohama. Certainly I never met those people. I never had so much trouble in Kyoto, or Tokyo, or anywhere else I have been on either of these trips. My directions to Kamakura did not include the information that I would have to change trains at Ofuna. Not a big deal, but a little disconcerting. Serendipity only goes so far.
Today when I got my reserved seat for Kyoto, they didn’t remind me I had to go back to Shin Yokohama. Yes, I should have remembered, but didn’t. I thought I had an hour to kill and went looking for a cup of coffee when I realized I couldn’t find the proper track. This time they gave me a little piece of paper, in English, giving directions to Shin Yokohama. I’m not the only one who has had this problem. Perhaps because there have been so many Americans in Yokohama, they assume we know our way around where people in other cities assume we know nothing and give us all the information we need.
We are an hour out of Kyoto and I think it’s still raining, although not very hard. I didn’t like my reserved seat, the middle in a row of three, so I went to a non-reserved car and got a window seat. I’ve been able to put my stuff on the middle seat, half the car has been empty most of the way. Evidently the reserved seats were all booked, except for the middles. I think it’s probably possible to travel most ot the time without a reserved seat, making the railpass not such a big bargain.
Lunch at Vie de France, which still didn’t have pain noisette, but had onion soup and half a pita sandwich with lettuce and chickens and onions. Not bad at all. Getting to the hotel wasn’t too bad with only slight rain. I spent some time in the room regrouping, then went out to find a garden. It had stopped raining but there were some fierce, gray clouds.
I went down to one of the temple areas, looking for Reikenji, one of the temples Jacqueline had particularly recommended for its trees. I never found it, but its a lovely area and I found Otoyo Shrine, which I enjoyed.
I continued walking down the Philosopher’s Patch, a lovely area along a canal, surrounded by mountains.
As the sun began to set I went to the bus and came back to the hotel.
St. Agnes Episcopal Church and school near the hotel.
Tonight I had dinner with Jacqueline. I met her at the temple and was fascinated to see where she is staying. Although she is sleeping on the floor on a futon she has a large room with a real table and chair in it, making it much more comfortable than the rooms where I slept, ate and worked on the computer on the floor.
Dinner was great; the best I’ve had since arriving in Japan. We went to a tiny place, really a bar called Kitchen Raku Raku, right near the temple. It’s only one long bus ride away and I will return at least one more time before I leave. We began with two appetizers: a toast round, on good bread, with chopped raw fish on it, almost like a bruschetta and a scoop of what may have been mashed potato, but nothing like we make. We shared two different kinds of fish, the first a grilled local variety that was special. The other one was good, too, but the first was marvelous. We asked for vegetables and got this beautiful bowl of cauliflower, lotus root, some kinds of mushrooms and I’m not sure what else, but also great.
We finished with two of those sticky rice balls with sweet sauce on them. That was the only thing I didn’t love. Definitely deserves another visit, maybe two.
Japan and China on my mind 