Adventures in Japan part 3

Trip from Tokyo to Kyoto. Time quoted above is the train travel time (2hr8m)

Mt Fuji and the Bullet Train. Not my photo.

This is part 3 of my journal of adventures in Japan. You can read the other posts about this trip by visiting my Japan blog page.

Riding the Shinkansen
After my stop at T's Tan Tan, which I wrote about here, I was off to catch the train to Kyoto. The train trip between Japan and Kyoto covers about 320 miles and will take you past Mt. Fuji. If you're headed towards Kyoto you'll want to be on the right side of the train in order to see the famous mountain. By the time I realized where Mt. Fuji was on the route, I never ended up seeing it.

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Inside the Shinkansen. Again, not my photo.

The bullet train ride was extremely comfortable. In most trains that I took, it was rare that I had someone sitting next to me. As I remember, all of the trains I rode had rows of two seats split by a center aisle. Trains had restrooms and also other common areas to hang out while riding the train. One question a few people have asked me was whether you could feel the speed of the train while riding it and the answer, for me, was no. I never felt the train's movement.
Aboard the Shinkansen, you can buy various snacks or drinks from an attendant who makes her way through the train cars. It was never really apparent to me what the full menu was or prices, so I never bought anything while on the train.

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Hostel Bed in Kyoto

Arriving in Kyoto
Once I arrived in Kyoto, I made my way over to the hostel I had reserved for the next two nights. The hostel ended up being very clean and had an interesting bed setup. Each room was setup like your standard hostel - dormitory style with multiple bunk beds setup throughout the room. The difference, though, was that every bed was privately enclosed with a cloth covering so it was almost like you had your own little personal capsule. Pretty neat!
After taking a look at what there was to do in Kyoto, I left the hostel and made my way through one of the local markets, which had excellent knick-knacks for sale. This was actually one of the best markets that I saw in Japan. Most of the other ones I went to had relatively cheap goods for sale but this one had high quality souvenirs and other items. After I made it through the market, I arrived at the train station to have one of my first encounters with a Japanese subway system.

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Nishiki Market in Kyoto

The Japanese Subway
It took a while to get used to and sometimes you would run into stations that did not have the station names in English. The great thing about Japanese subway, however, is that the system itself stays very consistent between cities. I rode the subway in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and other cities and the setup was always the same - same signs, same method of collecting tickets, same ticket kiosks, etc. The ticket kiosks themselves were a bit intimidating but once you figured out how the system worked, they were easy to use. The main thing that you would have to do is figure out what station you were going to. Underneath each station's name is the cost (in yen) of getting to that station. Once you know the cost of the station you're going to, then all you'd have to do is put that amount of yen into the machine and purchase your ticket. Japanese subway stations in all of the cities I visited were numbered such that if you couldn't find the station you wanted on the station map, you could always look up its station number on the internet (wikipedia usually worked for me) and then figure out where it was located on the map. This helped in situations where the subway station map did not contain any English and was in Japanese. In those situations, relying on the station numbering system became key.
Another strategy for buying subway tickets is to simply buy the cheapest possible ticket. Then, when you arrive at your destination, you can simply visit a fare adjustment machine and pay any additional required fare (see photo of the fare adjustment screen below).
Whenever you leave subway, you have to pass your ticket through the exit gate to ensure that your ticket covered the cost of your travel. If it doesn't, the gate will not let you pass and you'll have to visit the fare adjustment machine to pay more into your ticket.
A quick note here about entering and existing any JR line is that to enter, you simply need to flash the train attendant your JR pass. You  do the same while exiting - no need to buy a ticket for the JR or go through the regular turnstiles - just always be ready to flash your ticket to the attendant and you're good to go. See the gallery below for some photos from the subways & trains in Japan.

Walk up to the Bamboo Forest
First on my list while in Kyoto was the bamboo forest. After riding the subway up in the direction of the forest, I exited and took a beautiful walk up around the edge of Kyoto. It was here that I was first struck by the pure beauty of Japan. Japan itself has many mountains and these were on display as I walked. Another tradition that I became accustomed to was the practice of Japanese tourists renting and wearing traditional kimonos while sightseeing. This was on display more in Kyoto than any other place I visited during my trip.
After walking along a river and up the side of one of Kyoto's border mountains, I finally arrived at the bamboo forest. Unfortunately, by the time I arrived it was starting to get dark out, so I don't think that I was able to have the full visual experience that's possible during the day time but the forest itself was still very beautiful.
After walking through the forest, I continued on and ended up visiting a temple that I had read about before traveling to Japan.