7 October 2026
The day we leave for Kyoto. Up at 7:45 and breakfast a little after 8:00. Our bus doesn’t leave for a while yet, 10:51 to Odawara, directly outside the hotel. Only thing to do is pack and then kill some time online and playing.
Checkout without problems. My Suica card still hasn’t turned up, so I didn’t lose it here either. That means I need a new one in Odawara.
The weather is cooler than yesterday. We wait for Bus Line J, which will take an hour to the station. When it comes, it doesn’t accept our Hakone Free Pass. Bummer. We have to pay 1,550 yen (8.75 €). The bus winds through a lot of curves and is quite full with tourists and luggage.
After an hour we arrive at the station. First thing to do is get me a new Suica card, and after that we buy the tickets for the Shinkansen. 14:07, standard class with reserved seats. 69 € per person.
We still have enough time, so back to the restaurant we visited two days ago, and this time we get the special deal: a rice bowl with cutlet and two eggs. All that food for 3.88 €!
Then I get the chance to log the geocache at the station. Easy find, and then into the city, which isn’t like European cities, where you have designated pedestrian areas for shopping. A little bit chaotic here. In the end, Tim asks where the next cache is, just so we have something to do while we kill time.
Two caches toward Odawara Castle, both finds logged, and then it’s time to get to the station. The Shinkansen has its own part of the station. On the platform there are strict rules, repeated in English several times: don’t touch the fence, stand behind the yellow line (or we shout at you 😂). Understandable, with trains passing by at 250+ km/h.
We booked two window seats for this two-hour ride. Very spacious for the legs, decent comfort, and a free seat beside each of us. The ride has 3 stops and then arrives in Kyoto a little after 16:00. The WiFi doesn’t work on the train. Some reading and watching the landscape fly by. The weather gets really good the closer we get to Kyoto.
Kyoto Station seems to have been renovated. Nice, and a little less confusing than Tokyo Station. We get to the exit, and now we have to collect our luggage that was sent ahead from Tokyo. The office is on the way to the hotel. It takes less than 5 minutes to get our bags and leave. Amazing service they have there. Should be exported to other countries.
The hotel is just 300 meters away. A self check-in hotel. Tim has all the information. Room 202 is the smallest so far, and the bathroom is very small. Really small. But it’s only four nights, and we only want to sleep there.
Time to look for dinner, and for once I find a restaurant offering Wagyu beef grilled at the table. Tim books us a table at 18:30.
Short walk, and we get our private sunken table. Like in other restaurants before, you sit on the floor but with your legs under the table. We go for the Premium Course, ¥10,000 per person, thirteen dishes: premium beef tongue, seared Wagyu beef yukke, Wagyu beef skirt steak, today’s selected Wagyu beef, seared Wagyu beef sushi, a kimchi and namul platter, sirloin shabu-shabu, today’s salad, Wagyu beef lean loin, Wagyu beef ribs, offal, Morioka cold noodles or beef broth egg soup, and today’s dessert.
Everything tastes amazing. Different cuts, all tender and juicy, grilled by us on the tabletop grill. Some greens and salad, but we both pass on the offal. Nope, don’t need that. I can’t eat the cold noodles at the end because I’m so full, but the vanilla ice cream and hot tea for dessert still fit in. With drinks we end up at 67 € per person. Worth every cent. We’re happy and full, and the service was amazing. We were wondering if they had cameras, because the next course of beef always arrived exactly on time, just as we finished the previous one.
They even ran after me out to the street to give me two sweets for us, because I was fast out the door.
