Day 4 - Nijo, Kyoto 京都

It was raining, hard. A dismal start to what was to be a fairly dismal first day in Kyoto, the old imperial capital of Japan. We walked, in the rain, up to the Kyoto Kokusai Hotel from Kyoto-eki. The lobby was amazing when we got there but after then we were asked to wait for a bell boy before we could go to our room I was somewhat less impressed and more so when the bell boy appeared to be waiting for a tip which the guide books tell us is a distictly un-Japanese trait. Sadly we had no 'net connection either so we weren't able to give any updates for a couple of days or to book our next accomodation. What else was there to do but dress up in our robes and pose for the photo above?

That evening we went down into Kyoto to look for a bar. After an age of wandering around and sore feet we finally found a "hole-in-the-wall" bar. This was an alleyway with about 8 small bars down each side partitioned from the main alleyway with funky Japanese-style sliding doors.

The one we went into was run by a middle-aged lady and her mother. When we were seated we got a dish of some miscellaneous food, one part of which was slices of duck meat. After a beer, some cold sake and then some warm sake, we were fairly merry and left very much worse for wear and with lighter pockets. Drinking in Japan gets expensive but it was a good experience trying to communicate with the lady and her Ma and the sake there was the best I've ever had, with a price to match.