25.11.20 - Kyoto to Tokyo

One last hoorah for Kyoto, Mom and I take a stroll after breakfast down the street along the river and over to Shoseien Garden. Looking at Google maps, I thought it was going to mostly be open green space, but it's more like a maze of green space and buildings! I almost felt like Alice in Wonderland, not knowing what was around the corner. There were multiple tea houses, reception halls and ponds, and clearest water running under little stone bridges. Definitely a great place to wander. It is small though, so you don't wander for too long.

Heading back to the house, Mom's hankering for another matcha before we leave Kyoto so we stop by Murmur Coffee which is close to the house. It is absolutely tiny and quite a tight squeeze with the six or so tables they have. Mom and I bumped knees many times, but it was also kinda fun. Unfortunately we haven't found matcha tea like the one at Gion Tempura Ramen Kiraku (which was our favorite matcha) as most we've found are lattes, but this matcha latte hit the spot.

Packing up the last of our things, time to head to Kyoto Station and catch the shinkansen back to Shinagawa. We grab a few bento and beer at Kyoto Station before finding the track for our train. Shinkansen arrive and depart surprisingly frequently, so we find standing room along a wall amongst many other folks. Our train arrives and we swiftly hop on board - the shinkansen waits for no one!

Unlike our train from Shinagawa to Kyoto, this train back to Shinagawa (all the way to Tokyo) is packed. Yay for reserved seats! I must've fallen asleep for a good portion of the trip as I wake up with about an hour to go. Our stop quickly comes up and we hop off to find our transfer gate for the Yamamoto line to take us to Ueno. Side note: if you are taking the shinkansen in or out of the Tokyo area, I highly recommend using Shinagawa as your arrival/departure station - it is fairly quiet for such a busy shinkansen station and I think way easier to navigate than Tokyo Station would be, as there's really only one way in and out.

The Yamanote line takes us from Shinagawa Station to Okachimachi Station, a 19-minute ride. In no time at all we've reached our stop. For this part of our trip, we're staying at Section L Ueno-Hirokoji which is a 3-minute walk from Okachimachi Station. Such a far walk, how ever will we cope?

It instantly feels different in Ueno than in Kyoto, much more city and hustle bustle. We find our building, check-in to our room and dump our stuff to go find dinner and provisions. Luckily there are many options nearby for groceries. First, we stop by Matsuzakaya Uenoten Honkan (this is the Google maps name, although I think the building sign just says "Matsuzakaya"). This is another department store with the food area in the basement, and guess what? They have what's apparently our favorite salad place that was also at Takashimaya and Daimaru! So of course we grab a few salad things for dinner, plus some extras.

After dropping off our dinner purchases into the fridge at the unit - because it's only 5 minutes - we then head to the basement level grocery store of Okachimachi Yoshiike Main Store Building which has a fish store on the street level at the entrance (in this case looks are deceiving, you'd never know the fish store was hiding a grocery store below it). Matsuzakaya does have a grocery section, but it was more fancy than what we needed for yogurt and fruit. Gotta say, I really like the Japanese grocery checkout system - you scan and load your items into a separate basket, pay, and take your new basket over to a counter where you bag your stuff. Pretty nifty.

Back up from the basement we go and now to Family Mart for some booze for the parentals, then back to the unit for dinner. Tomorrow will be day one in Tokyo, so many possibilities!

Sayonara!