{"id":280,"date":"2008-10-04T09:44:58","date_gmt":"2008-10-04T09:44:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/updates.xephalon.net\/?p=280"},"modified":"2008-10-04T09:44:58","modified_gmt":"2008-10-04T09:44:58","slug":"hakone-and-kyoto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/2008\/10\/04\/hakone-and-kyoto\/","title":{"rendered":"Hakone and Kyoto"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Traveling to our hotel in Hakone was an adventure itself. After reaching Odawara and its castle<\/a> by train, we took a mountain tram to Gora, switched to a cable car to Togendai, then boarded a sightseeing boat across Lake Ashi to Moto-Hakone for the bus to our hotel. Though the heavy fog that day made for a misty, romantic view of the sulfur springs in Owakudani<\/a> and the great torii at Hakone Jinja<\/a>, our view of Mt Fuji was completely obscured by the blanket of white. Fortunately, we were redeemed on arrival at the Mikawaya Ryokan<\/a>, where our lavish Kaiseki meal and a soak in our outdoor private hot spring bath melted our stress away. By the time we arrived in Kyoto by shinkansen on Wednesday, we were totally re-invigorated. After checking into our hotel<\/a>, we wandered down the narrow street of Pontocho<\/a>, munched on over-spiced okonomiyaki<\/a>, and finished the night with ramen from another Santouka branch. The next morning, we braved the maze of bus routes to check out Tenryu-ji<\/a> and the bamboo forest in Arashiyama. From there, we headed east to the famous zen garden at Ryoan-ji<\/a>, survived the asphyxiating crowds at Kinkaku-ji<\/a>, and found reprieve at the serene gardens in Koto-in<\/a>. The afternoon was spent exploring the imperial palace<\/a> with an hour-long guided tour and gobbling octopus balls at the Nishiki<\/a> food market. We took a last detour to behold the tunnels of toriis at the Fushimi-Inari-Taisha<\/a> before rounding the night off with a beautifully-presented yuba dinner at Komameya<\/a>. On Friday, we went to Higashiyama for a morning view of the Kyoto skyline from the mountain-side temples of Kiyomizu-dera<\/a>. From there, we strolled through the serene street of Ishibe Koji for a stop at the gardens of Kodai-ji<\/a> and paid homage to the Ryozen Kannon<\/a>. Further north, we passed Maruyama Park<\/a> and listened to the hypnotic Buddhist service at Chion-In<\/a>. After a lunch break with some nabeyaku udon at Hinode Udon<\/a>, we wandered down the Philosopher’s Path<\/a>, with multiple stops for green tea soft-serve, before reaching Ginkaku-ji<\/a>, which sadly was under renovation. Feeling totally “shrined” out, we spent the late afternoon browsing comic books at the Manga Museum<\/a>. We concluded our final evening with two dinners – an unagi-don<\/a> rice bowl and a hearty platter of udon<\/a>. A perfect ending for any trip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Traveling to our hotel in Hakone was an adventure itself. After reaching Odawara and its castle by train, we took a mountain tram to Gora, switched to a cable car to Togendai, then boarded a sightseeing boat across Lake Ashi … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}