Japanese Hotel Room Tour
It’s the first of the new Japan vlogs! Arriving in Kyoto, Japanese hotel room tour and a preview of what’s coming up.
Sorry it’s not a very exciting start to the new videos (I was so tired after the long flight!) – there is lots of good stuff coming up, I promise! The first few days will be in Kyoto, then on to Tokyo. So the first few videos will be about more traditional Japanese culture: gardens, temples and old streets. As my guide book said, Kyoto is the Japan of your imagination: ancient streets, elegant gardens and kimonos. While that’s not why I love Japan – it’s the modern side that I love the most – it was amazing to see and experience. It was definitely good to see more of the country, outside of Tokyo – which is certainly very different.
APA Villa Hotel Kyoto-Ekimae
The hotel we stayed in was the APA Villa Hotel Kyoto-Ekimae, which is in a very convenient location near Kyoto Station. It’s not very close to the main sightseeing areas, but as we were only in Kyoto for a couple of days, one of which we caught the shinkansen very early to go to Hiroshima, I found it easier to be right by the station. There are lots of restaurants nearby, and – importantly – convenience stores for drinks and snacks. It was walkable (but not a particularly short walk) to Higashiyama, which is where a lot of the temples and sights are.
The room was clean, modern and comfortable – fairly small, like most hotel rooms in Japan, but I was happy with it! It was about £70 per night, at the weekend at the start of October.
If you stay there, note that there’s another APA hotel very close by called APA Hotel Kyoto-Ekimae (without the “Villa”). Be careful not to get them mixed up like I did!!
Okonomiyaki
The okonomiyaki was from a place in Yodobashi Camera, which is very close to the hotel. There’s a whole floor of restaurants to choose from. We’d planned to eat at Chabuton, another branch of the ramen restaurant we enjoyed in Tokyo, but the vegetarian ramen was crossed off the menu. So we went to an okonomiyaki restaurant instead, which turned out to be absolutely delicious – I had cheese, potato and mochi okonomiyaki, yum! (If you don’t know what okonomiyaki is, watch my video from last year!)
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