Bullet's Go!

We had a leisurely morning, waking up in hakone. Breakfast that we bought at the 7-Eleven the night before, cleaning up and repacking all of the stuff that had been strewn around our hotel room for the last couple days and we were actually ready to go early.

We lounged about the room, watch some YouTube, and eventually bid farewell to our onsen hotel.

We took the bus down the mountain to odawara station and tried to figure out how to retrieve our tickets for the shinkansen bullet train to Kyoto. Elizabeth spent a long time heroically talking to and calling the people with the train tickets, before we finally thought to check whether or not I had bought them, which I had. Once we figured out who had bought the tickets, we immediately retrieved then and headed to the train platform with 10 minutes to spare.

We had grabbed two of the front rows in the train, which was very comfortable and had a lot of space for reclining, as well as plugs to charge our devices as we traveled.

The ride was very smooth, and the train was, unsurprisingly, very fast. There were occasional fences that were just tall poles next to the train, and we were traveling so fast by then at it was impossible to see them.

While Elizabeth was dealing with ticket problems, I took it upon myself to go and buy a variety of small bento boxes and onigiri so we would have something to eat on the train. Elizabeth's onigiri in particular was pressed sushi, wrapped in persimmon leaves.

Side note, time lapses taken from bullet trains look like assembled pictures with no continuity.

We headed upstairs from Kyoto station to the city bus terminal, where we boarded a bus headed towards gojozaka station. The bus was extremely crowded, and only got more crowded as time went on.

It was very stressful feeling like there was not enough space for everybody who wanted to ride, also when people needed to get out, they had to go through the front of the bus, which meant that they had to Wade through a sea of people who were already compacted on the bus.

Eventually, we arrived, and walked the 6 minutes from the bus stop to our Airbnb, when we realized that we were an hour early for check-in.

Given that it was 100° outside and we were hot from the bus ride and the walk in the sunshine, I found a local cafe, and we walked another 6 minutes in the hopes that it would be air-conditioned.

Not only did they have air conditioning, but they also had ice cream and shave ice. We ordered desserts, enjoyed the cool air, and killed an hour while we waited for the Airbnb to be ready.

The place we're staying is old, like much of Kyoto. Apparently it was a home in the traditional samurai style, which means shotgun style in America? The galley kitchen is thinner than any kitchen I have ever been in, and is also the only way to get to the bathroom.

We plan to get up very early tomorrow, and so part of the plan for this evening is getting food for early in the morning so that we can be up before the heat really hits. We headed to a very close local supermarket, just before they closed. Seeing the prepared foods having been picked clean is an interesting experience compared to America where everything is meant to last. We bought snacks, bread, eggs, butter, ham, gyoza, and Henry bought a package of small smoked fish. I'm not 100% that he wants that but I support trying new things.

After returning with our spoils, we headed to a local Indian restaurant which had excellent food all around. We got sheep biryani, palak paneer, and butter chicken.

Fed and happy, we stopped at the 7-Eleven for dessert, then headed back to the Airbnb, relaxed, and headed to bed.