The mystery of Waratenjin Mae

DAY 6

(Reading time: 4 minutes)

From Hiroshima to Kyoto, we were “spirited away” by the elegant Sakura.

Kyoto is the former capital of Japan, it is said to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with over 1600 temples and shrines. You can get around the city on foot, by subway or by bus. We wanted to take advantage of all the JR Pass options, so we chose JR buses, but there weren’t many. The biggest mystery of the entire trip to Japan happened here. After getting off the shinkansen, we went to the bus stop and tried to figure out from the board which bus would take us closest to our accommodation in Kyoto. We knew we needed Waratenjin mae stop. Everything was in Japanese so our mission failed. Fortunately, besides the board with Japanese gibberish, there was also a young lady ready to help confused tourists find the right bus number. She directed us to the bus that stops at Waratenjin mae, we got on and arrived at our destination. Simple.

And then, no other bus with the same number ever arrived at Waratenjin mae again. Never!

Every bus, at any time of day or night, either didn’t go that far at all or turned completely elsewhere. Why? What magic propelled only the first and only bus to reach Waratenjin mae? Why did the other buses with the same number always go somewhere else? A question worthy of the “Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction” show.

Anyway, we ended up having to walk two kilometers from the last possible stop before our original one to our accommodation.

We stayed in a traditional ryokan, which can either be very luxurious, or simple and modest. We had the latter version with an older lady, whose house could easily have experienced the heyday of the shogunate. At least it was authentic.

The house had two floors, was almost entirely wooden, with crooked walls and floors, narrow corridors, drafts everywhere through the windows and sliding doors, but for now, it held up. The landlady lived downstairs, and the upper floor was divided into 5 rooms, a kitchen, a shared bathroom and a toilet. Given the paper-wooden walls and doors, privacy was out of the question.

We got the largest room. The floor was covered with tatami mats, futons instead of beds, and a low table with cushions for sitting.

You can’t get more traditional accommodation than that, but I can’t say that anyone maintained it properly. There were piles of unnecessary things, dishes, figurines, unused household items lying around everywhere. The bathroom urgently needed renovation, and I can’t imagine how heating works here in winter. The landlady probably only kept it as a supplementary income for her pension and lacked the motivation to do anything extra. Too bad, with a little effort, she could have turned the “simple and modest” into very attractive accommodation for tourists.

In the afternoon, we again used the JR bus services. Although the bus from the railway station to Waratenjin mae didn’t arrive with us for the second time, it cheerfully and regularly continued down to the center in the opposite direction. Beyond belief.

We walked through the Nishiki night markets, visited the modern Kyoto shopping street Kawaramachi, and suddenly got hungry. Have you ever experienced a situation where you’re as hungry as a wolf and there’s nothing to eat around you, even though you’re in the middle of a fully urbanized zone? Probably blinded by hunger, we probably didn’t see those options, but in any case, we wandered the streets with clothing, electronics, cosmetics until we found a suspicious-looking entrance to a restaurant underground…

…and entered the kingdom of delicacies served in small portions.

We didn’t know what to expect, so we started cautiously with two plates at suspiciously low prices, but we quickly got used to it and ordered more and more dishes based on the pictures in the menu.

They had it well thought out there; you could (and wanted to) taste a little bit of everything, and if something happened to taste less, it wasn’t a disaster. Small portions, various types of food, we enjoyed them all and ordered quite a lot.

If someone tells you that Japan is expensive, don’t believe them, it’s just gossip. 😊 If you don’t insist on fancy restaurants, you can eat great food at reasonable prices without having to go to a fast-food chain.

-endy-

DONKEY’S SPECIAL:

• The situation where the bus, on the way to Waratenjin mae, unexpectedly turned left at an intersection and the driver stepped on the gas was quite funny. Sitting on a bus in the middle of Kyoto, you’re going, don’t know where… (we always have offline maps downloaded abroad, so we got off at the next stop and walked from there).
• We got the largest room by sheer luck; it was originally intended for guests who ultimately didn’t show up, we just put our suitcases there during check-in, and the landlady felt awkward moving us for no reason (it sounds trivial, but the “small” rooms were at least half the size).
• Few people understand our native language abroad in general, so even though the entire floor could hear us through the paper-wooden walls, they absolutely couldn’t guess what we were talking about.

-mj-