We left Takayama saddened by the fact that we had not witnessed their annual parade, which had been cancelled because of the bad weather.
This leg of travels would take us to Nagoya, using an older Shinkansen Limited Express, and then from Nagoya to Kyoto on a new Shinkansen, but again, Limited Express.
Limited Express, by way of explanation, stops at some major stations rather than going from one point directly to another.
We arrived at Kyoto Station 3 hours and 40 minutes after leaving Takayama Station.
Being in the Green Car makes the whole experience very comfortable. More room between seats than you can imagine, no problems laying the seats back fully and little conveniences like power outlets for every seat.
The closer we got to Kyoto the heavier to rain got. Given our less than clear directions to the apartment, and the heavy rain, we chose to catch a cab over the suggested, by our host, bus. The trip took 20 minutes, with the cabbie piloting a new Prius through the heavy traffic on wet roads like he had stolen it, and cost ~$20.
Thankfully by the time we arrived the rain had settled down to barely noticeable drizzle.
We were about to learn another lesson.
This one is was going to teach us about how to interpret the numbers in an address.
We had booked an apartment in a large tower block and we had no problem finding the building itself but now we had to find out where 3-506 was.
Here begineth the lesson.
The "3" is wing (think in hospital layouts), the "5" is the level/floor (Note that the Japanese do not have a 'Ground Floor') andthe "06" is the apartment number.
The apartment numbers restart at every wing, to make it just that little bit more interesting.
We got it sorted reasonably quickly and without looking like totally useless foreigners, I think.
We met our charming host, who would be best described as a young Kyoto hipster, and although we explained our minor hiccups in getting to the apartment from the station he didn't quite get that his instructions were of not much value to either the local cab driver or we geijins.
All's well that ends well and we were now in a very big, very well appointed apartment.
He was full of apologies for the weather ( .. and so he should be, given that it was entirely his fault! Joke, Joyce ;-) ) and gave us a quick run down on the Kyoto public transport system, which is bus reliant, and his choice of local eateries.
We settled in easily and went for a quick walk around the neighbourhood. We found a reasonably large supermarket and stocked up on a few foods that we frankly weren't entirely sure how they would taste, but that's part of the adventure.
It was now time for dinner and as we didn't want, nor need, to venture too far away we decide to choose between the yakitori shop on our side of the street or the okonmiyaki on the other side of the street.
We choose to cross the street.
We had okonomiyaki made for us by an old lady that reminded us of a Nona!
She spoke no English and didn't stop apologising, in Japanese, for it.It didn't matter 'cos a lot of pointing, even more smiling, a few laughs and Tiz's patience and travellers Japanese ended up with a couple of the best okonomiyaki of all time.
We returned to our swank Kyoto apartment to watch a My Kitchen Rules episode from April 6th on YouTube. Yes, I'm happy to out myself as an MKR tragic.
It remind me of World Championship Wresting.
We all know it scripted, ad driven crap and yet it so much fun to watch.
God bless the interwebz, I say ;-)
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