Arrival
While many airlines try to sell less than mediocre meals, Turkish Airways still serve meals that are included in the ticket price. And to my surprise it was quite tasty and even came with metal cutlery.
Two and a half hour flight to Istanbul, two hours and fourty minutes wait for the connecting flight that took another eleven and a half hours. After those 16 hours I have figured out that the hotel was still another 2 hour train ride away from the airport.
Riding regional trains in Japan is interesting. The have multiple train companies, and no unified sales system, which means you need to buy the ticket for each distance seperately. Basically almost each time you change the train. From the airport to the hotel in central Kyoto it took tree different tickets.
IC card to the rescue
If you ever travel in Japan by regional trains and don't want to keep missing all the connecting trains, because you need too much time to interact with the ticket vending machines, you want to have a IC card.
IC cards evolved from a single train companys prepaid ticket to a more general payment method. While not all businesses accept them, all regional train companies seem to do so.
While the sale of phsical cards has been discontinued due to a supply shortage of chips, there is an even better alternative. You can simply create one yourself in your iphone wallet. Choose the public transport option and transfer some money from your credit card to the IC provider of your choice. Up to now there are Suica, Pasmo and Icoca.
Around midnight the options to obtain a proper meal are limited in the vincinity of the hotel. So I went with some food from the next combini (convenience store). It was certainly not the highlight of Kyotos cuisine, but way better than you might expect, if you ever needed to eat ready made supermarket food in Germany.
The hotel is nice. The room is 3 x 2,2 meters and has a large bed and a tiny fridge. The bathroom is also tiny and the faucet can be switched between the sink and the bathtub/shower. And there is one of those famous toilets with warm water washing toilet seats (温水洗浄便座 Onsui Senjō Benza)!
There is no toilet brush, but the hose of the shower is long enough to reach the toilet, if neccessary.
Around two hours prior to my landing an earthquake has coccured on the Noto peninsula. I heard that in the news. They said houses where shaking even in Tokyio, which is even farther away than Kyoto. Still no destruction has happend here. No need to be worried about me.
As I was late to order the voucher for a JP Rail Pass, so I had them send it directly to my hotel. I was uncertain if that would really work, as it is quite complicated to write japanese addresses. Still it was already there when I arrived.
