Day 1-2: Return to the Rising Sun
I think over time one of the factors that makes em prefer Asia (or deep South America, or South Africa) over say Europe, is that the flights are long enough you can get a lot of sleep. Yes, you may still be jet-lagged to all hell, but not also sleep deprived. Well, there is an exception to this, I guess, which is the fact all flights into Tokyo for some reason leave the US in the morning, and arrive the next mid-day. Basically, I had a lovely 13h30m flight, enjoying an upgrade to United's Polaris business class, but got roughly 4-5 hours of sleep.
A quick bit about United - their business class experience is quite good, in a sense it is the same as any European airline. Is it as good as Singapore or the ME3 or other Asian carriers? No, absolutely not (though with Emirates and Turkish there is a good chance you'll be in a 2-3-2 biz class cabin which is ridiculous...). But it gets a bad wrap. For most of the post-pandemic time, the biggest criticism has been United's catering. They know this. They aren't going to invest to truly overhaul it, but United has teased better meals for a while now and they are living up to that.
Dinner was a very well cooked short rib with a great sauce, broccolini and tarragon mashed potatoes. Simple, but really well made. The best sign of their improvement though was having three breads offered, and a starter of giant jumbo prawns with an Indian spiced rub and mint yogurt sauce. I honestly think the biggest mistake United is making is not serving their meals in courses. I vaguely remember them doing that pre-Covid, but if they just gave the salad (admittedly, very average) and starter first, and then the main, that by itself probably elevates things.
Anyway, over about four scotches, a nice toasted tomato soup midflight, a cheese plate, a very interesting (definitely not bad, but maybe not great either) Japanese "breakfast" of yuzu cod plus stuff, and watching Babylon (far better than I expected) and Lost In Translation (as good as I expected) for the first time, it was an enjoyable first flight. Just less sleep than I would've wanted.
Upon landing at Haneda (new airport alert!!), we exchanged our JR Rail Pass voucher for the actual deal (probably a more complicated journey than need be), hopped on the local subway from Haneda to Shinagawa and then boarded our Shinkansen train. The JR Rail Pass allows for a whole host or rail options, including full use of the Shinkansen trains apart from the super-fast one. In about 2.5 hours, we were in Kyoto, reaching at 5:30pm, with an uber over to our hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn. It is the only hotel I'll be staying at in Japan, staying only as both me and another friend had Hilton free nights that were expiring. The hotel is beautiful, with a minimalist wood-heavy approach that basically defines Kyoto architecture as a whole.
We were all quite beat and wanted to attempt to be full strength come our one fancy dinner in Kyoto, so we took quick naps before heading to Lurra. There are many fancy restaurants in Kyoto, many of them super expensive, slimmed down Kaiseki-style places where you sit on mats adn stuff. We looked into a few bit they were either too expensive ($300+), or already booked. Lurra is a more conventional fancy (michelin-star) restaurant, in a simialr set-up but more modern. They too have only counter, open kitchen service, today with 14 people being served. I'll have a separate post about the four fancy meals we're having in Japan (this one, one in Takayam and two in Tokyo) at a later time, but for now just know the food was divine, made almsot solely of local Kyoto (and if not Kyoto, then for sure Japan) ingredients.
After dinner, with it now basically being morning time back home, we ventured a bit, doing a far better job holding off jet lag as I would've predicted (my two friends didn't have as many issues as I did getting sleep on the plane...). The first place we went to was named Caamm Bar, a whiskey bar that was about as cool and purely Kyoto-ish as I was hoping for. A few low tables and a long bar, tons and tons of whiskey bottles. We stuck to trying Japanese fare but they have a whole collection of scotch and American whiskeys too. The bartender was happy to give us suggestions and not all of them were super expensive - in the end while food is expensive in Japan what we learned is alcohol not as much.
The final stop was Barcode, a well known foreigner-heavy karaoke bar. Sure enough, it was 80% foreigners and expats but everyone having a great time. As a group that enjoys a karaoke tune or too (though generally more a piano-bar setup), it was a great old time. There was a machine you input songs into - picking a song is free, though there is no guarantee by the time it comes on you'll get the mic as others may jsut be hogging it belting a song out. The most notable of this is us putting in Country Roads and by the time it came on 20 minutes later, a Danish guy who had one of the mics convinced himself that he requested the song. Anyway, everyone was singing and generally having a great time. As I may be graduating out of nightclubs (though we'll see...), spots like this may be taking over prominence for me.
What was also nice was the 10-min walk from Caamm to Barcode took us down the main night drag of Kyoto which is far more enticing and fun than I remember it being. Kyoto hit the spot on the first day. A long vacation awaits, but it started in good stride.
