Shinkansen to Kyoto

Our short visit to Tokyo soon came to an end.  We spent our last evening enjoying beers on the roof of our hostel overlooking the river before having a few mugs of Sapporo beer and cups of Sake in a backpacker's bar across the bridge. 

With slightly fuzzy heads, we woke early the next morning and I ambled to the nearest convenience store to pick up some breakfast (mainly pastries, fruit in jelly and chocolatey bread type things - no cereal or fry ups here).  The heat at 8:30 in the morning is already over 30 degrees so it was a slow amble, and one has to hop from one shadow to the next to avoid creating a human fry up.

At 11am, we were packed, loaded, strapped in to our rucksacks and on our way to Tokyo Station to pick up the Shinkansen 'bullet' train to Kyoto.

Perfectly on time and incredibly fast, we were out of Tokyo and whipping past rural towns and lush green fields before we knew it.  Mount Fuji even made a brief appearance through the clouds. 

And here we are, in a very nice hostel in a lively area of old town Kyoto, surrounded by bars, restaurants, shops and shrines.  Our room has a desk, space for our rucksacks to lay open and is even big enough for Rosie and I to move around without one of us having to step outside!  Already the city feels much more spacious, with wide streets and avenues and trickling rivers and canals snaking between them.  A nice change of pace to the pressure cooker that is Tokyo which simmers beneath a hazy lid of towering concrete and neon lights.

Our first meal in Kyoto was unexpected - as the best meals are - having seen some good looking platters in the window of a restaurant (many eateries display full size plastic versions of their dishes).  We then saw that they had an English menu (quite rare in Japan) and walked into a pretty little Japanese establishment with low tables, curtained partitions, a gentle odour of cigarette smoke and soi sauce, and frequent calls of "Sumimasen" (Excuse me!) escaping from the hidden booths.  Ordering the 'sushi selection' among  a few other traditional dishes, we were presented with the above (for those who don't know, sushi = raw meat (often fish) with rice).  Delicious parcels of fresh sushi were served before us - tuna, sea bream, squid, prawn, eel and....chicken.  Chicken.  We rolled the dice and I took the bullet, hesitantly chomping down on the latter - raw, yes, oh so raw, chicken.  Take that UK Food Agency!  It's actually quite a normal dish here so, of course, I lived to tell the tale.  Just don't try it with your average family pack of chicken breasts from Iceland.