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| Sunday, April 16, 2006 |
| Kyoto - Starting out from the train station |
I'd though I'd start my Kyoto guide around Kyoto station since that's where most of you will be starting. Kyoto station is almost a tourist attraction itself with 15 levels of shops, restaurants and game centres; it is the largest train station I have ever seen. I suggest when you arrive to climb the escalators to the observation level to get a great view of Kyoto, especially those of you on a budget and can't afford the fee to go up Kyoto tower.
Below the main station in the subway station is a very useful information desk. Here you can get maps of the city and the Kyoto bus route. You can also purchase an all day bus pass for 500yen, which is great value especially if you plan to do a lot of temple hopping, you'll save a packet on bus fairs. The staff also speak English.
A pdf of the bus guide can be found here
As you exit the main entrance of the station you will see the bus depot. It's quite large with around 14 different stops. This is where your bus map comes in handy. Say for example you want to go to Nijo Castle. Look on the map at where the castle is. You will see but routes 9, 12, 50 and 101 got past there. They are also colour coded so it is easy to follow their routes. Now looking down at Kyoto Station we see that routes 9, 50 and 101 leave from the station. Route 9 seems to be the most direct route, so you simply hop on bus number 9. It is impossible to get lost with this system, it is just too hard to its brilliant (Sydney are you listening?), so make sure you get this map and ticket.
The front of Kyoto Station is also the meeting place for Johnnie Hillwalkers Kyoto walking tour. I went on this tour last September and found that a well travelled guy in Japan like me could still learn a thing or two about this country. His tours are conducted in English and filled with interesting facts and eccentric humour. He will take you around some of the lesser know parts of Kyoto where you can see arts and crafts being made, Geisha houses, the original office for Nintendo, a fantastically huge temple, a smaller temple where you can try on Kimono and for some nice traditional snacks towards the end of the tour. It would make a great start to your trip in Kyoto and good chance to get some local knowledge in English before setting out by yourself. The tour is a reasonable 2000yen and operates on Monday, Wednesday and Friday only and not on public holidays.
A link to Johnnie's home page can be found here |
posted by ramen_lover @ 2:59 AM  |
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Name: Burado
About this site:Each week I'll will bring you the latest news, web sites, travel info,interesting links and entertainment about Japan and it's culture.
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