[JAPAN] Last taste of tradition
February 25th, 2010
–Hakone, Kyoto–
Had a nice sleep, of course, after a lovely hotspring session the night before. So lovely, that we had to take advantage of the facilities… and go again! It was open to everyone during the day (women only of course). So we tried to beat the crowd and got in there by 6:30am. Breakfast was at 7:30am, so its nice way to start the morning, nice hot bath 
This was the view at 6am, the air was so fresh
We prepared ourselves for yet another, feast for breakfast! It will be last of our traditional ryokan experience.
We had breakfast in the comfort of our own room…
Doesn’t look as overwhelming as dinner, but trust me, it was FILLING. We still got fish, and also scallops in our miso soup, Proper, home made miso soup. It’s weird how, we always get served (powdered) miso soup in Sydney but in Japan its not popular in a meal set.
That was our last meal, of traditional Japanese food. It was quite enjoyable the time that we were at the ryokan.
We made our way to Tokyo now, which is around an hour and a bit away from Hakone. Thank god, it only took a bus and a train.
–Kyoto–
After settling our luggages in our next ryokan – Hirashin ryokan; which I found was o.k. it’s located in Shijo, it’s quite convenient just located between Kyoto station, and Gion, the historic town in Kyoto.
I was quite surprised at Kyoto, it was alot more built than I had imagined it to be. I thought the whole place was old, and traditional. However, there were quite alot of shrines and such on the main street.
Our first stop was, Kinkakuji shrine (or was it castle), the architecture is beautiful, especially how the outside of it is decorated with gold flakes. We went at a good hour, at sunset when the light just reflects on the gold, beautiful, beautiful.
On our way back to the hotel, as usual we were quite indecisive on what to eat, plus the fact that its hard to find food at a decent price in Kyoto (it’s quite expensive!) Fortunately, there is a Ramen shop just around the corner from our ryokan. Even if, by this time we were almost sick of having Ramen so often…
It was quite nice and good value I suppose, Y900ish, with a gyoza set.
And here is our ryokan room – it seems quite crowded here, because it is… it actually is for 5 people but instead of getting another room, we had asked if we could ‘squeeze’ in. Japanese accommodation is quite flexible with that, they were easily convinced 
This was roughly Y4300/night with no breakfast/dinner.
Downside of this place is; it smelt like straw, from the tatami mats? =/
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