Day 18 - The Greatest Hits

Today was transfer day. And so we decided to do the greatest hits of Japan's golden route. In the morning we started in Osaka on Sennichimae Doguyasuji, the Kitchen Shopping Street, buying all those things we swore we didn't need 3 days ago and now have decided we can't live without. We did some serious credit card damage.

Since we didn’t completely destroy our bank accounts in the morning, we caught a subway train back to Osaka/Umeda Station to pick up a local rapid express train back to Kyoto. This was a previously unscheduled stop, although we needed to pass through Kyoto to get to Tokyo anyway. We wanted to return to a small pottery shop, Kotouen, near the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest to pick up some souvenirs we had been regretting not purchasing last week. Unfortunately, or fortunately if you're the shopkeepers of Sennichimae Doguyasuji in Osaka, we took a little too long with our morning purchases and it was 2:30 when we arrived in Kyoto. Thankfully, we learned enough about the Kyoto train station to know that on the 10th floor there are nine ramen restaurants (aka Kyoto Ramen Street/Koji. Taking advantage of our love of noodles in soup, we enjoyed a tasty bowl of Kyoto white miso ramen, and caught another local rapid train westward to Arashiyama.

After a bit of a hike from the station, we managed to pick up what we wanted. Turns out the storekeeper/potter/owner remembered us. So he not only gave us the 10% tax-free discount (for non-residents), but also one of our purchases for free. His soul is as beautiful as his pottery.

After an exhausting walk back to the train station (it was 85° here today) we returned to Kyoto station and picked up the Shinkansen bullet train to Tokyo. Here we encountered our first oops of the day. Our previous journeys on the bullet train had been negotiated by our walking/hiking tour leader John. This time we were on our own and had forgotten that in addition to purchasing the train ticket, one also needs to settle the bill for their local train routes connecting to the Shinkansen. Long story short (too late), we missed our reserved train and had to catch the next train in an unreserved car. But every cloud, as they say,- we were procured window seats on the left hand side of the train affording us an excellent view of Mount Fuji at sunset as we passed by at 270 kph.

Our greatest hits parade continued with a visit to our favorite chirashi bowl place, Miko's (Seafood Bowl) Eatery, which also happens to be a 12-minute walk from our hotel, Shiba Park, owned by the same company as our first Tokyo hotel, Park Hotel. It continues the theme of art and literature running throughout the floors of the building, and includes a small library for guests and reading nooks on each floor.