The Quinn Family Excellent Adventure: Goodbye Kyoto Japan - Hello Tokyo 1 Japan

It was time to say goodbye to our wonderful new Mom in Kyoto. I had planned to take a taxi and as we were saying goodbye to our hosts, she noted getting a taxi would be tough. I fired up the taxi App we used and sure enough, none around. Oopsie. She suggested she would drive us to the nearest bus station. Cool. We jumped into her cool tiny SUV and next thing we knew she was driving us to Kyoto station. So awesome of her. I think she likes to get out of the house. She shared with us she is South Korean. She lived in Japan for years and worked here as a nurse. She is retired now running Oyama guest house as a retirement income. She gave us warm hugs and accepted nothing for saving us lots of time and money. Such a sweet person. We were extra early a traffic was excellent. Plenty of time to chill at the Shinkansen track. Every track has a little waiting area. Plenty of space to pile your stuff and wait. Every track has multiple little stores and plenty of vending machines to choose from. Downstairs in the station are several stores selling beautiful boxed lunches for your ride. I love being early at the train stations as every once in a while a Shinkansen will blast through not stopping. It's kinda crazy how fast they are going. And soon after that, a slow train pops through and stops using the same track. Epic timing. I had time to inspect the tracks. There is only an allowed 2mm variance. You can see it in the welds and holdings. This track means business. In fact something I noticed with the Shinkansen and regular trains. They are designed to tilt around corners. I'd expect a Shinkansen to tilt at it's speeds but even the regular train tracks are build to tilt around corners. Why don't we do that?

Soon we were in Tokyo, wild. The train stations in Tokyo are probably the busiest in the country. You can imagine how fun it is to navigate. Fortunately the signage is excellent. There are also plenty of well marked personal offering assistance. I did not feel lost considering I found plenty of lost locals sometimes. It's really that big and multi layered. I knew a taxi from Tokyo station to our AirBnB would be nuts. It was only a single train so we went for it. As we were navigating the station a very nice Japanese man offered us help. We led us around eventually leading us the the Chuo line. He indicated he spent 50 years living in Sweden before returning to Japan in his retirement. I think we gave him a Canadian pin. Nice guy. Before long we were on a regular train and not far from our new home. Following the AirBnB route instructions led you from the station, through a huge grocery store and down a few tight streets. It was really densely populated yet so clean and well kept. Our new home was amazing, themed completely around Studio Ghibli. KT was in heaven. It was a lovely location and place to hang out. The AirBnB owners documentation mentioned energy savings quit a bit. Unfortunately he did not know the front door was warped. Quite a large air gap let in the cool air. I let him know and we used an interior door to keep the bathroom and shower isolated. We were lucky to have a heated toilet seat. The shower includes a ceiling air heater which is used to dry the room and clothes if necessary. Cool. We used that a few times. Our studio Ghibli tickets were soon hand delivered to us. Such a great service they provided. These things are like gold. And they are now in our hands. We had a few days before our Ghibli tour so as usual we wondered around where there was green space. Blossoms were everywhere as were people enjoying them. The local Japanese brought (or rented) tarps for sitting and relaxing in the beautiful parks we walked upon. Plenty of food and alcohol was being enjoyed. Huge dumpsters were present for the impending recycling and garbage. Garbage is two things here. Glass, thick plastic, cans are recycled. Everything else is combustible. I'm assuming they use incinerators here like any sane country. People here package each of these categories in well organized well tied bundles. They are not chucked in a pile like idiots. Even along the road side where garbage awaits, there are little nets covering this garbage so as nothing blows away. It's no wonder every stream, river and pond I saw was alive with happy hungry fish.

The route to Studio Ghibli was beautiful. I walked whilst the girls took transit. We met soon before our scheduled entrance. Pictures inside were not really allowed so we grabbed what we could. The museum was astonishing. So much attention to detail. Well worth the visit. A short movie was included and despite being Japanese only, it was sweet. The gift shop was crazy crowded but piqued my interest in completing a Studio Ghibli movie collection. After the museum we grabbed some local grub and enjoyed the local park with thousands of others on a beautiful spring day. The girls were ok with walking home so I could show them my route and discoveries. Stunning views all the way. What a great way to end our first Tokyo AirBnB. It was time to head to Tokyo 2 our next AirBnB

Time to inspect these train tracks