Day 10 Japan
Checking out of the hostel today but I decided to do a day trip to Kobe before heading onto my next stop.
Kobe is the home of Kobe beef and lots of sake breweries.
And a giant Tetsugin statue! He was cool.
I had Kobe beef for lunch in sort of a rice bowl thing and it was pretty damn tasty. Plenty of places to try the beef in various forms ... you just need to pick your price range. It's just steak so I didn't really care how I had it but it was good. I wouldn't mind trying a high end cut of steak one day to see how it is. I did balk at spending $100 for lunch though so I opted for the low-mid end of the scale.
I also went to a couple of sake breweries / museums to have a look. The thing I was most interested in was the process of polishing rice. I didn't know how they did it and none of the places I went to covered it. Annoying. I had to google it.
None of the sake's I had were good enough to make me want to cart the bottle around for a couple of days so I headed back to Osaka to pick up my bag and move onto Kyoto.
If Osaka is about eating, drinking and shopping (I.e. Modern life) Kyoto is the complete opposite. There's something like 1800 temples in Kyoto. It's the epicentre of history and culture in Japan.
In Osaka another friendly old guy started talking to me while I was on the train. His English wasn't very good but he was enthusiastic and we had a few laughs. He pointed out that I was on the slowest train to Kyoto so at the next stop he pushed me off and pointed me to a faster one across the same platform. Thanks old dude!
The Kyoto railway station is pretty damn big! And the building it's in is awesome! Huge modern thing that's 12 stories high. I eventually found the right exit for the direction I wanted and walked the 15 minutes to my hostel. I'm staying in a facility of the same chain as the one I stayed in Osaka so apparently they have some sort of loyalty scheme. Every third night you stay at any of their facilities you get either a 300 yen discount, free bicycle hire for the day or a couple of other things. I chose the 300 yen discount because that's what it cost to do laundry using their washer and dryer. No hand washing for this chump!
I went to some big market area for dinner after I arrived but by the time I got there most of the interesting bits were shut. I found some Takoyaki (go eat some now!) for a snack and ran across this little temple right in the market. Tiny place but beautiful and really quiet given the location.
I stopped in at a random restaurant on the way back to the hostel and it turned out to be a yakitori place. I had some awesome yakitori and it cost me the usual motza but it was a lively place and I had a good time.
The JHoppers hostels have both been quite good so far. English speaking staff, nice solid beds, reasonable futons (I'd prefer an inner Spring mattress but I'm in Japan), privacy screens on the bunks and good bathrooms. Also close to the cheapest hostels in some places so if anyone is looking to go to Japan on a budget I'd recommend them.
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