Day 11. Goodbye Kyoto, Sayonara Japan
Simon and I woke early so we could say goodbye to Yoni and were intent to make the most of our last day. We were flying out to Australia together in the evening, so had the whole day together.
As I wrote earlier, there is no way you can see everything that there is to experience in Kyoto in just two days, but the Arashiyama bamboo grove seems to be high on everyone’s list. Not on mine. It is certainly otherworldly, eerily beautiful and interesting, but give me a wild black bamboo forest over Keinan any day. Yes, most people won’t get to that forest, and I’m very glad that this is the case, but I didn’t find Arashiyama so wow. The beautiful Garden of 100 Flowers, attached to the Tenryu-Ji temple was far more impressive, where we wandered for half an hour, enchanted by the beautiful spring flowers. After completing the one km path lined by the towering bamboos, Simon and I deliberately got lost in the neighbourhood adjacent to the grove, eventually coming out to a path that ran next to a broad section of the Katsura River, that resembled a lake, more than a fast flowing river. The path led to a bridge that crossed the river and led back to the town of Arashiyama. It was a very pleasant morning, the type of thing that is appropriate for a last day. But if we hadn’t seen the gardens, back paths and river walk, I’m not convinced that schlepping out
to the Arashiyama bamboo grove is worthwhile by itself.
Large department stores around the world pride themselves on their food courts, usually in the basement. They offer premium quality local food, usually to be taken home to be consumed, at super premium prices. I had heard that Daimaru food court in Kyoto was as good as any food court anywhere in the world. Both Simon and Yoni have been there and I take their culinary advice very seriously. Yoni had flown out already, so Simon happily agreed to accompany me. People go to Disneyland for the magical wonder of the Disney world. I was in my own Disneyland, salivating at stall after stall of perfectly presented Japanese and European food. In general we found Japan quite cheap, given that the Yen-Dollar-Sheqel exchange rate was so favourable. Not here. You pay for quality. You can’t just wander around and window-drool. I needed to make some choices about what to buy. I actually don’t remember what I tasted, but I do remember being spellbound by the experience.
We were flying out of Tokyo Narita airport and needed to catch the Shinkansen bullet train to Tokyo, that covers 500 km in a bit over two hours. We weren’t too stressed about getting to the station as I had booked the tickets the day before.
Train stations around the world also often have great food courts. Kyoto station certainly does. There was one Japanese dish that was on my list that we hadn’t had an opportunity to try. Okonomiyaki, a cabbage and pork pancake, often cooked on a griddle right in front of you, had escaped us. Having spare time before our train, we found an okonomiyaki specialty restaurant at the station, so why not? I am glad to report that I could leave Japan with my food list completed. It was fantastic. I could think of no better final meal in Japan. Though I think I might have said those exact words two hours earlier at the Daimaru food court. Not to worry.
We still had time to get to our train, but had spent all our spare time, so we couldn’t dawdle. With QR code at the ready, I was ready to board. Not so fast. Turns out that the QR code needs to be scanned at one of three specific ticket machines close to the entrance gates before arriving at the actual train platforms. Finding the specific machines was not simple. The clock was ticking down. Unlike everywhere else we’d been, where there was always someone to help you who spoke at least rudimentary English, here at Japan’s busiest tourist station, we couldn’t find anyone who spoke English or seemed eager to help. We eventually found the right machine , but the instructions were in Japanese only. The clock doesn’t stop ticking, especially in super punctual Japan.We had instructions sent with the QR code so we could get the ticket out “blind”. After much frustration, we got our tickets with 3 minutes to spare. We still had a chance to make the train. I swiped my ticket through the ticket reader and nada. It didn’t work. Two minutes to departure. I tried again. I looked down at our ticket and was dumbfounded to see that I had booked a ticket for the same time, but exactly one week later. Not today. Fuck. We were cooked. There’s dumb (me) and dumb luck (me again). It was borderline, leaning towards improbable, that we would make it the train I thought I’d booked on. Because we didn’t actually miss our train, we could change our tickets for a train 15 minutes later on this day. Great. With valid tickets for the Shinkansen train to Tokyo, we happily passed through the ticket gate. Which platform? There’s over 20 platforms at Kyoto Station and once again, finding English language help is not so simple. After running up one set of stairs onto a platform but not being convinced it was right, we descended back to the main hall, still looking for the correct platform. The two minute clock was ticking down again, for the second time in twenty minutes. Panic was setting in. We ascended a different stairway that took us back to the original platform, and with sixty seconds remaining before the train left the platform, decided it was Hail Mary time and that this had to be right. Sweating, with our hearts pounding, we found our assigned seats on the correct train. Two hours and twenty minutes later we calmly disembarked at Tokyo central.
We had prudently allowed much longer than we thought we needed for check-in, luggage, passport etc at the airport and the twenty minute delay to our timing caused by my fuckup meant very little.. We didn’t take into account Japanese super-efficiency. If Kansai airport surprised us with its inefficiency at arrival, then we equally weren’t prepared to have checked in, put our luggage through, passed security and had our passport stamped, within ten minutes of getting off the bus. A new world record. It left us with plenty of time to spend those last few yen, buy an unnecessary but delicious ice cream, followed by dessert, an equally delicious bowl of udon noodle soup. We also had plenty of time to start reminiscing already about one of the greatest holidays we have ever had.
