It was another easy agenda day; we were transisting from Kobe to Kyoto. Daddy Lim and the kids whacked the buffet doubly hard knowing that it would be their last chance bcos mummy wouldnt be crazy 2x and booked another nice hotel. Hahaha. All gone!
On the way to the train station, I heard the bakery calling my name. I cannot resist bread.
On the way to Kyoto! It was a scenic ride but people were more interested in their phones. Zzzz.
Kyoto is a huge station with a lot of people and activities. We saw many primary school kids in their cute little uniform that I couldnt help but snapped their pictures secretly. Look at that uniform! I also realised that while we saw many preschoolers, we seldom see school going kids or teenagers. They must be studying hard. This picture was taken on a Saturday morning and the kids looked like they were going home after school.
We would be staying in the Kyoto Ibis Style hotel for 2 nights. The hotel was again a stone throw away from the Kyoto station. It look quite good actually.
It has a big lobby somemore. The room was not ready, we left our luggage and went on our way to the railway musuem. At check-in, the staff said that the room comes with 2 semi-double bed. Whatever that means, it sounded good to fit our family.
The musuem was about 15 mins walk away.
We saw Mr Donut along the way. Look at the packaging! So kawaii! Even the tape looked incredibly cute.
So was Pikachu sitting in the bag.
But not for long... Noooooo!!!!
We had to walk through a park and park means playground and playground means must play.
Bcos the kids were more interested in the playground than the musuem, we decided to stop for lunch at the restuarant to allow the kids more time.
Finally we managed to pull the kids off the playground and to the musuem.
Most of the explanations were in Japanese. There were exhibits of real trains from the different eras.
Plenty of history, which we couldnt understand bcos of the language.
Interaction activities.
I like this one, where the kids get to experience buying the train tickets.
There is even a gantry.
The ticket gets printed once it had been "used".
There were quite some other interactive activities that we didnt try bcos of language barrier. But kids are imaginative and they looked for all opportunities to create play even this little tunnel that they could crawl into the display.
We left after a couple of hours and stopped by for more playground play, leaving only bcos it was going to rain.
The room was ready when we were back at the hotel. Seriously, I could not really remembered what I had booked or if I had paid bcos the bookings were usually done many moons back. Our family could still fit into 1 room but we now had to request for an extra bed or will make do with a sofa bed, which was exactly what I had done for this hotel. I didnt check during check-in bcos the staff had said that there would be 2 semi-double beds, even Daddy Lim heard that and she took all our 4 passports for printing.
We were shocked to see that it was a extremely tiny room with a double bed. There wasnt even room to place an extra bed. With the big kids now, there wasnt any possibility of squeezing all of us in that one bed. The staff (a different one) was not helpful. She was a foreigner and could speak English but kept insisting that the hotel did not recieve any request for extra bed and we needed to go back to our agent for the discrepancy. Hello, it wasnt a time to call agonda, what we needed was an option or solution!
We ended up suggesting alternatives and were given the impression that there wasnt another room to change to bcos the hotel was fully booked. We could top up to a slightly bigger room with twin bed but still the room would be too small to fit in an extra bed. We were told that all their rooms could not accommodate extra bed. Huh? Then how come there is the option via agonda? Never mind, we just had to suck thumb and improvised. We did ask for extra pillow and blanket, which thankfully the hotel accommodated. I thought Japan is well-known for their good service? Hmmm...
With the tiny room, there was no way that we would want to be coop inside. We packed the kids and headed to Nishiki, the famous food market in search of dinner. It was also our 1st experience taking the bus in Japan. I was told that Kyoto is alot more connected by bus than train.
The experience was lousy largely bcos we didnt know where to stop and there was a lot of anxiety. The map that didnt quite help. Which line is the bus route? Where is the market? Aiyo!
We eventually found our way alright largely bcos of google map and were safely in their food street. There were plenty of sashimi, street food and sweets. Kyoto is well known for their traditional sweets.
The food were expensive. We had 2 of these big fish cake and they cost us Y1,000. That is like S$12!
Bcos there were few rubbish bins in Japan, more so in Kyoto, the stalls have these benches for patrons. We were encouraged to consume the food, return the rubbish to the stalls before moving on.
The kids were hungry and opted for Wendy's. Not very nice leh.
More walking and eating.
Before finishing with an ice cream. I found it too milky but the rest loved it.
We took the train back this time despite a walk to the station. We had enough of the bus and anxiety.
Back in the hotel, the kids dipped in the bathtub. It is interesting that bathtub seems to be an essential in Japan. We had the bathtub in all of our hotels even when the room was super tiny like this one. At least the kids made very good use of the tubs.
This was our improvised make shift bed for the night and Lil Shauna was our guinea pig. We had our big ass jackets as the base layer, then the blanket, the bath towels and finally our home brought towels as blankets. Tester approved.
Mummy Lim
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