Japan 2024 trip - We took a tour of Japan operated by Inside Japan, Sept 2-18, 2024
9-2-24 8:30 am
We are at SFO, in the United Business class Polaris lounge restaurant waiting for a light breakfast.
The last several days have been hectic. We were scheduled to depart 8-31-24, but heard about a typhoon hitting Japan so we delayed our trip. I spent a lot of time on the phone & email to change reservations for our flight, transportation from the airport in Osaka to our hotel in Kyoto, and changing arrival date at the hotel. Another concern is that the weather in Kyoto and the other places we are going will be hot - 85 degrees & humid has been another concern.
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| Marge at SFO Polaris Lounge |
Flight: Our flight was only about 1/3 full. I had read that a lot of people would be traveling over Labor Day which is today, so I was thinking the airport and flights would be crowded. I’m pleasantly surprised that there wasn’t much traffic to the airport and that there aren’t many people on our flight.
9-3-24 Osaka/Kyoto
We landed in Osaka in the early afternoon, and were able to find our transportation to the hotel in Kyoto exactly where our instructions had directed us. The hotel is in Kyoto, which was about a 1.5 hr drive. Normally, the driver from Osaka has several passengers going to different hotels, but we were the only passengers, so we were driven directly to our hotel in Kyoto.
The hotel is located in a very good area in terms of restaurants and shopping, yet our room on the 9th/top floor is quiet because we don’t hear any noise from the street.
We had dinner at a restaurant named Chao Chao, which Pat & Dick recommended from their trip in April. We were glad that we had that recommendation because it was about a block away, was very good, and we didn’t have to do any research. We were really tired from the flight so having a restaurant recommendation made it easy.
9-4-24 Kyoto all day
The weather prediction for today is a high temperature of 89 degrees & humid, starting around 75 after breakfast.
We were able to meet with our tour guide after breakfast and he pointed out some places that might be interesting.
We had wanted to check out the oldest sweet shop in Kyoto, but when I checked the hours for Wednesday, I saw that they were closed. We decided to go check out the food floor at a big department store, so we set off for Daimaru. When we were Tokyo years ago, we discovered that big department stores have a food floor with lots of food stalls, including my favorite- pastry stalls.
Our course took us along a covered street known as Nishiki Market, full of food stalls, but most didn’t open until 10 am, and we were walking through at 9:30 am. I had read that the prices in Nishiki were inflated, so no loss.
Here’s a photo of Nishiki. Normally, it would probably be very crowded, but not before 10 am
On our walk, we passed a Lawsons convenience store and went in to check out their food. Convenience stores like Lawsons & 7-11 carry a lot of tasty foods like sandwiches, sushi, etc. Here’s a photo of some tempting sandwiches & sushi:
At Daimaru, I had a couple of my favorite Japanese sweets called manju.
Daimaru also has restaurants in the top floor, so we shared a bowl of ramen for an early lunch.
After lunch, it was 85 degrees, but it was only a 16 minute walk back, so we walked. Luckily, the sidewalks on the way were shaded by big overhangs. There is a Uniglo store a block from our hotel, so we went in. Marge bought an Airism top and I bought sleep shorts.
This afternoon it was 89 degrees, so thankfully we are resting in our room.
Tonight we treated our tour guide, Van, out to dinner. He took us to an izakaya, where we had a number of small dishes. Here are some photos:
Van & Marge had several glasses of what were probably very good sake, which is probably why the meal cost $90.
