Last Trip to Kyoto - Part 2

Once I'd arrived in Kyoto, I had to find my way to the local train lines in the station. Up until now I had never used the regular lines in Kyoto. I only used the shinkansen and buses to get around, or I went on foot. I knew where the goddess was (a.k.a Starbucks), so I grabbed my usual summer drink of iced caramel macchiato, and headed off to find my train platform.

For those of you who are planning a trip to Kyoto, my advice is to plan out all routes and make note of train lines, bus numbers, etc. If I had done my last trip in a 'fly by the seat of my pants' fashion, I would have gotten lost. I'd also have wasted an enormous amount of time. If you know what temples or other sites you want to visit, look them up on Google. A lot of them have English sites now with "access" maps that show you what train lines and stations you need to go to.

It turned out that the line I had to take (Nara line) wasn't even in the same station as the shinkansen line. I had to go outside the station and walk for a few minutes. Luckily I'd researched that ahead of time. It was really close and not hard to find once I got the right exit from the station. Kyoto has a lot of signs up to direct you to trains and subways, so it's not a big problem. Here's a map to my first stop:

As you can see, it wasn't that long of a ride, and it only cost me 140 yen.

Once I got off at the station, I had to walk a fair distance. At first I got a little lost, because the station is a small one inside a town. I got turned around several times trying to get out of the town and onto the path that leads you to the temples. Thank goodness for GPS!

The rest of this post is very picture intensive, so I've added a break. Click on to continue.

Ashikaga Flower Park

On Sunday I finally made it out to 足利フラワーパーク(Ashikaga Flower Park) out in Tochigi Prefecture. The reason I say finally, is that I've been planning to go there for over 4 years now. Every year in May I say I'm going to go, and every year I wait too long and miss the window. The window being; the wisteria.

If you want to visit the flower park, but are worried about missing out on the wisteria, don't. A few of the purple ones are still in full bloom, the double flowering version is at its peak now, and the yellow variation of wisteria will continue blooming until the end of this month. Also, the park has a lot of other flowers like roses, irises, exotic waterlilies, etc.

Getting to the park from Tokyo turned out to be somewhat of an ordeal, so I hope you can benefit from my hard-earned experience. First of all, prepare to get up early. I left my house at 7 a.m. and didn't get to the park until 10:45. I got to Kita-Senju station around 7:50 and planned on taking the next train, only to discover I had just missed one. The next train wasn't until 8:49. When I finally got out to Ashikaga-shi around 10 a.m., I found out the shuttle bus wasn't a quick 5 or 10 minute run like I thought. It was 45 minutes.

I planned to be the early bird and get amazing photos by being first in the park. Instead, by the time I got there, about 8 huge bus loads of people had already arrived. Basically, my only thoughts at that point were, "Bugger. Why did I come here again?"

Is it worth it after all that bother? Let me show you a few photos and you can decide for yourself. I would go again in a heartbeat. The smell alone was worth it.

Quick Random Photo Post

Since we're right between the end of one fiscal year and the beginning of the next, tax season, end of school, etc. I've been rather busy. I haven't had much of a chance to go anywhere or do anything. I'm hoping to head out to Kyoto at the beginning of April to see the Miyako Odori, and I'll be sure to post it if I do, but other than that I have nothing going on.

So, rather than just leave this blog with no updates, I thought I'd do a quick photo dump of things I've seen or like recently.

#1 Starbucks during Cherry Blossom season

I am crazy about the Sakura Chiffon Cake that Starbucks puts out every year around this time. It's delicious! They used to marble the cake, and have white and pink marbled chiffon with salted cherry paste blossoms, but this year it's a uniform pink. The taste is still the same. It's got a cherry flavor and on top you get a salted cherry blossom. 

This is the cake from last year...and my pj pants. lol