Happy birthday to my baby brother Keith. Hard to believe all five of us Krause kids are now 60 and over.
We skipped breakfast at our hotel this morning. We were both afraid the owner would force feed us again. I decided to wear my boots instead of packing them so I could honor their system of no shoes in the rooms.
We walked to our first bus stop and only had to wait about 20 minutes for our bus. It took us to our first train ride of the day. The first ride was almost four hours long. It was a pretty ride as we were near the coast for part of the ride. The waves were not near as strong as they were last week when we went by them. Their buses are very clean and comfortable. We didn’t have reserved seats today but we didn’t need them. Our car of the train was not very crowded.
The second bus ride was only 25 minutes long. We were at the right track but it didn’t feel right to Nicole so we went upstairs. When we put our ticket in the machine at the gate the ticket person told us we were headed in the wrong direction and sent us back to where we had been. We only had a 15 minute lay over but we made it with time to spare. The train was three minutes late – the first delay of any sort so far. Impressive!
When we got to Kyoto station Nicole got us out of the huge train and bus station and headed in the right direction to our hotel. We found a McDonald’s and decided to try it. We both had a chicken sandwich, fries and iced tea. The chicken sandwich was wonderful, the fries OK and the tea was icky. We were both getting hungry as it was early afternoon and we hadn’t eaten anything today.
We walked about a mile from the train station to our hotel. It is a nice place – not as luxurious as the one we stayed in at Osaka but very nice compared to the Guesthouses we stayed in on the trail. We have our own private bathroom and shower and western beds so we don’t have to sleep on the floor. It does have a community bath on another level if we want to experience that. No swimming suits allowed.
It is another very hot and humid day in Japan. We were both drenched with sweat by the time we got to the hotel after pulling our luggage through the crowded streets. We walked by a huge temple that we want to go back and go in later. There are several others near by to go see tomorrow.
This town feels busier than Osaka did. We picked a hotel right in the middle of the city and close to the subway line and a bus stop out in front. Nicole is getting very good at reading Japanese maps and figuring out bus and train schedules. She is figuring out where we are going tomorrow now.
The forecast had called for rain today but so far it hasn’t rained. Almost feels like it is raining as it is so humid out though. The heat index is 107 today.
After we cool down we will probably head out and do something later this afternoon. After a long day of travel it feels good to sit in the quiet and coolness of our room.
Hard to believe we only have two full days left in Japan and one of those will involve travel from this hotel to the airport. It should only take about an hour though so we will have most of the day to do something.
In some ways I am ready to go home but in other ways I wish we could stay longer. It has been a wonderful adventure! It certainly has been different from I expected but we have made the most of it and created some wonderful memories anyways. So there Typhoon Nora! She couldn’t keep two girls from Kansas down.