Today was another travel day, and since we didn’t pack the night before, we didn’t have time to do much in Tokyo today. We started the day by packing, and then we checked out of the hotel to head to Tokyo Station. At the station, we dropped a duffel bag full of Lucy’s stuff off for longer-term storage (mostly wushu, clothes, and tax-free items that she wasn’t going to use in Japan at all)....
Today, we woke up and grabbed some convenience store breakfast. Benton tried a fruit sandwich, since those seem to be popular in Japan (it was fine, but Benton was generally unimpressed). By now, we had figured out how to deal with the lack of public trash cans (by either bringing a plastic bag along to store trash in or by bringing trash into the train stations, which had trash cans around half of the time....
Today, the main thing on our agenda was a day trip to Kyoto. We started by grabbing an American-style breakfast at Optimus cafe, before taking the Keihan line to Kyoto (a super comfy, pretty fast commuter rail). Our first stop in Kyoto was at Fushimi Inari Taisha, a (very touristy) shrine known for its many red torii gates. We did the ~1hr walk to the top (most of the crowds cleared up after the first set of torii gates); it alternated between dry and light rain most of the way....
Today, Benton needed to do laundry (which was in the hotel), so we started the day by putting Benton’s laundry (plus a few of Lucy’s clothes) into the washer. The timer on this said the laundry would be done in ~2 hours, so we decided that was enough time to run and grab breakfast + get some matcha powder. We went to MONDIAL KAFFEE 328 CLUB A for breakfast/coffee. Lucy got a lemon + honey smoothie (very good)....