I have been waiting to get to this part of my trip for a long time because I really enjoyed visiting the city of Kyoto for a lot of different reasons. But first, let’s start with Kyoto Train Station, which is a destination by itself.
The first time I visited Kyoto was back in December 1998, and my mom was our private tour guide. We had been visiting temple upon temple in Japan for over a week. My brother and I, being young and restless, were sick of temples and decided we wanted to explore on our own. So my mom gave in and let us just go wander on our own, and we ended up around Kyoto Station exploring an arcade, and that’s when we discovered the game Dance Dance Revolution before Americans had even heard of the game. Seeing as the first release of this game was on November 21, 1998, we basically played it a month after its first release in Japan.
What caught our eye was someone who was dancing and spinning and stepping on this arcade game, something like this:
Intrigued, we found our own machine and started playing it. We spent $40 USD, failed every time we tried, and loved every moment of it.
Fast forward to 2014/2015, and Kyoto Station looks pretty different 17 years later. However, the features that I totally remembered were still there–the glass roof and ceiling and the series of escalators at the main entrance that basically took you all the way to the top and back.
Instead of exploring arcades this time, I spent a lot of time at Kyoto Station basically eating. First of all, there’s a Mister Donuts in there, so it was a perfect donut refill station for us every time we were going somewhere.
Also, it had a food court and restaurant selection that was all over the place, so when we were pooped from a day of travel and just needed to grab something to eat at the convenience of the train station, we tried a lot of different places and pretty much found everything delicious.
Next up, a newfound love for kaiseki (traditional multi course Japanese meal).
