The start of a new journey

Hi everyone!

After a long trip, I finally arrived in Kyoto! On Friday morning Eva (https://eenmeisjeinjapan.wordpress.com/) and I flew to Frankfurt at eight o’clock. From Frankfurt we had a flight to Osaka which took eleven hours and after that we had to travel from Kansai International Airport all the way to Kyoto which took us a couple of hours more. The trip was long, tiring and it made me feel sicker than I already was. Fortunately I was in Japan, so I could look at same amazing (but also some really ugly) buildings during our train ride to Kyoto. Around four o’clock in the morning (Dutch time zone) we arrived at our hostel, Khaosan Kyoto Theater.

When I was in Japan four years ago, I stayed at two khaosan hostels in Tokyo and one in Kyoto. During this time a made a lot of friends, so I decided I wanted to go to a Khaosan hostel again. Eva and I had booked a room, but what I didn’t know at that time, is that one of my old friends from Tokyo works there now! When we arrived, however, Rintaro-san wasn’t working, but we were greeted by another staffmember of the old Tokyo hostel, Masahiko-san, which was a real surprise and he still recognised me as well! Unfortunately we had to wait with checking in until 3 o’clock, so we decided to drop our bags and go for a walk around the city center. Since we’re in Japan and were really hungry at that time, we went to 7 eleven to get my favourite Japanese food for the first time in four years; Ume (plum) Onigiri. IT WAS AWESOME ❤ next to that, however, we also found some crazy stuff like this: a spawn drink with lychee flavour

Lemongina

Bath slime

We also checked out some of the shops in the shopping street nearby and looked for a place to eat, unfortunately I was to sick to go out for dinner so we decided to get some food and eat it at the hostel. In the evening the hostel organised a make your own chopsticks workshop. Two carpenters would lead the workshop and I decided to join since it sounded awesome. Here are some pictures taken by the staff of Khaosan Kyoto Theater:  After that, I finally met up with Rintaro-san to meet again after four years. It was awesome to meet up again and it’s nice to know someone in Kyoto!

Today (Sunday) Eva and I planned to do the free walking tour offered by the hostel. We had to get up at eight, but we were so tired from the flight that we both slept through our alarms and woke up at 9.30, when the walking tour already started. Since we didn’t want to waste the day, we went on a trip ourselves. We visited the Kamo river side where we had some lunch, and the Kyoto nightlife area which looks really pretty with beatiful small alleys. Unfortunately today I had to cough a lot the whole day, so I had to go to bed early since coughing on the streets of Kyoto without a mask, feels really bad. Fortunately I found something to cheer me up, that reminded me of four years ago when my sister was in Kyoto with me. We found these donuts and I found them again today. Now you may guess which one was today and which one was four years ago. 

After being in bed for a couple of hours watching the anime series Sword Art Online (to learn Japanese), we had dinner at a vegetarian restaurant in the same street as the hostel. It’s called mumokuteki (http://www.mumokuteki.com/) where we had this amazing bright yellow pumpkin soup, along with a bowl of noodles.  It was really nice and an experience to be in a restaurant where they only speak Japanese!

Now we’re back in the hostel enjoying our wifi and my netflix account. It’s time to go to bed and have a good night sleep, since tomorrow we’ll finally be starting our student life when we get the keys to our room for the next 5 months. Woohoo!

Love,

Hannah