A Travellerspoint blog

Kyoto + Nintendo Museum

Steps: 15,790 Km’s: 11.86

sunny 27 °C

Today we’re heading to Kyoto, so around 8am we got ourselves to the train station which we took to connect to Tokyo station. Here we got tickets for the Shinkansen.

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This station seemed huge, with food stalls and shops inside, but no obvious vegan bentos to pickup. We couldn’t figure out the mobile ticket kiosks since we don’t have physical suica card, so we waiting to talk to the folks at the ticket counter. Getting a ticket was easy but reading it was not at first. We asked for directions and eventually found our way to our platform and waited in line at our designated car. We watched as the conductor (?) greeted each incoming train, completed his checks verbally and my pointing. It was almost like part of his job was to be super obvious that he had done his checks. We also watched him change his posting to a new conductor. He handed over his keys, counting each one back to the new worker, and also passded along an old looking cell phone and a new smart phone which the new conductor put away and got settled in. The new conductor started to work and completed the same checks on the station.

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Our train arrived and we found our assigned seats, grabbed our packed breakfast and coffee and settled in for the two hour trip. It was not at all glamorous and the seats felt like plane seats, and while we knew we were going fast it didn’t feel that way. It did get a little rocky at times, and Chris felt a bit of motion sickness. All in all quite an underwhelming experience! But before we knew it we had arrived in Kyoto, a two hour train ride which would have taken over 6 hours driving.

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We missed seeing Fuji-San due to the overcast day, but she’s somewhere back there!

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We made our way to the local train to ride just one stop, then got off and walked for 20 minutes to our guest house. This walk was quaint, on tiny side streets in a squeezed tight little neighbourhood. Google maps took us on turns where we felt like we were in someone’s back alley, or up super steep, half-broken concrete steps with all of our baggage. It was sunny and hot and 29 degrees! We passed little shrines and a local school and finally rounded a corner to our temporary home.

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Vegan Minshuku Guest House, a small, four room bed and breakfast where we were to sleep on tatami mats in ryokan style. Craig. The owner, greeted us warmly and gave us the run down on the space. He also confirmed my food itinerary for our stay here and validated my choices for restaurants haha.

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The vending machines are different and just say “no 20” because the legal drinking age is 20, but.. it’s an honour system? We saw beer, cigarettes, food, and batteries.

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After changing we were on our way back to the local train to Uji, where the Nintendo Museum is. We walked back to the train station and rode a few stops. Uji is the home to much of Japanese tea so I was hoping to stop at some shops and get some souvenirs.

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Our first stop was lunch, it was going to be a more traditional kaiseki style of food with many different small dishes making up the meal. We found the restaurant on a tiny side street, we entered to see just a couple of tables in use, but we were quickly told they were sold out! It was only 1:30.. but oh well, not everything can go to plan! Checking happy cow confirmed my memory of my research in that there is hardly any vegan food in Uji. We tried a pizza place but it was too busy for us to wait. So we tried a grocery store. Both of our phones seemed to have no service because for the first time our Google translate wasn’t working. Perfect timing! Chris got his to go and we confirmed that many seemingly normal items like cucumbers in vinegar, plain potato chips, and rice crackers were not vegan. The rice crackers had chicken and beef! We gathered enough food and drinks to make a lunch and walked towards the river to sit and eat. My first choice for lunch was a seaweed salad, so I dug right in as I was starving. Taking a big bite, my mouth, sinuses, and even maybe my brain was filled with wasabi. Hot, spicy, fuming wasabi!! I spat it out and suffered the consequences. So I moved on to the rest of lunch which for me was two cucumbers, mixed nuts, and two lemony sochu sodas. For Chris it was an iced coffee, Pringle’s and Oreos.

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Without any extra time we said goodbye to Uji, noting that it just wasn’t meant to be for us to see any more of the town. We hopped on the skytrain for Nintendo and ended up following some folks who were clearly headed to the same spot.

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We queued and were greeted by so many staff to check us in. The process of getting tickets was a lottery and super strict, and we needed our passports to enter. They want to ensure you aren’t reselling. My last name caused a small problem as she couldn’t tell if the form we submitted showed a capital I or a lower case L. She had a tough time understanding that it was a capital I, but eventually let us in! We dropped our things in free lockers and were given our passes for the day.

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The entry gardens were themed and the concrete had characters in it too! Amazing. We got photos with the characters and there were staff everywhere to help you take your photos together.

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After entering we were told no photos of the first floor. To the reader: please Google it! The museum is a circular area with likely every item Nintendo has ever made. We started at the beginning, in the late 1800’s when Nintendo was creating playing cards. We saw other games like twister and Punchbuoy which totally tickled my memory. We went through the decades with the NES, N64, Nintendo DS, Wii and all of the rest. The museum had huge controllers of each system over top of all of the memorabilia. They had every game and every version of each game including the date they were released, the American and the Japanese version. We’d see items I forgot existed but then was fully brought back to it like the original gameboy games or the Nintendo Power Pad! And we saw plenty of games that were never released in Canada like the original Game & Watch.

We took our time to view everything then went to the gaming floor below where we could use our preloaded coins to play games! Unfortunately the queues were massive and luckily we were more interested in watching the fun than standing in line. Here we could take photos.

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Afterwards we hit the gift shop where Chris got a t-shirt. The items were made specifically for the museum and can’t be purchased anywhere else which was pretty neat. They also had buying limits on everything including only one of these >$100 controller pillows per person. They had many different controllers! So cool.

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We said goodbye to the museum and made our way to dinner via the train. Once getting off we realized we were in a massive city. Tall, sleek buildings with Gucci, Chantel, LV, and so many others in neon lights glaring out to the streets. Mall after mall. It was a massive contrast to the tiny town streets that we’re staying in so close by.

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We took the scenic route to dinner through Nishiki market. Chris was instantly mad at me for taking him through a space that had meat and seafood on display everywhere. It stunk, but there were breaks with sweet treats, trinket spots, and so many other stalls in this historic market. When he asked why I wanted to take pictures, I replied, “just because we don’t eat the meat doesn’t mean we don’t want to play with the carcasses.” IYKYK!

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We found our dinner spot and mentally prepared for a queue, but we were let right in to Kyoto Engine Ramen. Cramped and steamy, this felt fairly traditional despite all of the signs for vegan options. They had signs for all of the add ins too which were all vegan so we felt very safe to dig in. We ordered one of each vegan option, plus we each got a plum wine which was fruity and strong and delicious. This ramen was soy milk based and very thick, tons of miso and umami, and the crinkly noodles were maybe my favourite of the trip so far. Delicious! We left not too full which was perfect.

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Outside maybe 15-20 people were queuing to get in and the host was writing out the wait list. Score for us again!

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We wandered now to the Nintendo Kyoto store where we got some souvenirs. They had an even larger selection than Tokyo so we spent some time shopping there.

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Next we decided to hit up on of my pinned bars, and on the way we noticed many locals sitting down by the river. Chris seemed to thing they were waiting for something, and I saw a cat on a leash so we went down to investigate. After googling what we were seeing it turns out it’s just a popular spot to picnic and hang out, day and night. Next to the cat guy was a guy drinking a beer sitting on a tiny mat. We hung out long enough for me to pet the cat.

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Wandering through Pontocho Alley we saw many bars and restaurants. This place was packed with tourists. There was no way we were getting a seat at the tiny bar I had set my eyes on, I thought. We found it and walked up the steep and narrow stairs to the second floor, we opened the door and were greeted and asked to sit at the bar. Perfect! For the rest of the night we’d watch the lovely bartenders saying, “no, sorry, full, no seats, come back later” to many other hopeful patrons. We have such good luck!

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This bar had a theme: beer, and money! Worldwide currencies lined the walls and hung from the ceiling. A Canadian $5 with “go blue jays!” written in sharpie was stuck to the bar ledge. We each started with a beer and watched the tiny and outdated tv screen in front of us playing Canadian punk rock classics like Avril, simple plan, and others like green day, oasis, my chemical romance, etc. it was our kind of place! The millennials next to us started singing along to simple plan and so we struck up a conversation with them. They were from Portugal and Belgium, were on their honeymoon (2 years post wedding), and were so lovely. They shared our taste in music and concerts and we had a great chat about life and culture in our respective homes.

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Beer was from Kyoto Brewing Company and Chris had the grape sour, I the session IPA. Both were excellent and it was nice to have a quality craft beer for a change from all the Asahi lager types. After my beer I got a local botanical gin distilled with brown sugar on the rocks. The bartender stirred down the super clear ice to chill the glass then carefully zested a lemon for my drink. It was smooth and clean and easy to sip on. The quality of the drinks didn’t match the dingy and haphazardness of the bar, yet it was perfect.

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Lastly, Chris got a ginger ale (he chose from 3 different types!) and I got a plum wine. Chris also ordered a water and they purposely coursed it for him once he finished his ginger ale.

We left feeling happy to have made a connection, happy to have watched some super cute young bartenders showcase their craft, and happy for a funky bar experience!

We took the local bus home, our first time on one this trip. It was 15 minutes away and so we spent some time looking out at the buildings and people watching.

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Back at home we checked into our traditional style room, blogged, and I fell asleep on the mats watching the Vikings beat the Jets. My back was happy for a break and the bedding was surprisingly perfect for support.

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Posted by kmcveggie 14:10 Archived in Japan

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Comments

The museum looks so cool! Also happy to hear that you found kindred spirits in your love of emo music over there hahah

by Tawn

What a great trip!

by Lisa McInnes

Love the friends reference! haha

by Jeremy

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