Biting the bullet

On the move. Up early again this morning. The jet lag just won’t let me sleep past six, and also I think I’m nervous at the prospect of my train journey to Kyoto.

I did cut the size of my suitcase down but fourteen days is fourteen day and a boy needs outfits. Though having had a hotel next to a branch on Uniqlo for the last two days, I may be returning with more t shirts than I came with. Well, at £3.50 a pop for something at his £12.90 in London, who wouldn’t. And let’s not talk Issey Miyake. Though he’s still not found his trousers.

I have a taxi to the station and finding the platform etc is easier than I thought. Even time for a Caramel latte and a danish.

The train which looks like something out of Thunderbirds reduces me to be an eight year old boy again standing on the rail bridge in my Yorkshire village waiting for a steam train to pass underneath and envelope us in smoke.

As the passengers disembark, an army of pink ladies armed quite literally with spray guns and dusters enter the train and the doors close while they do their work.

The trains is a joy. Reserved seats, huge legroom, clean train, and a find myself sitting ext to 78 yr old Carol from Phoenix Arizona who is here with her family. Carol is a therapist and she is an absolute joy to spend two hours with. I know about letting my heart rule ny

head and finding my inner self. Funnily enough a lot of what she said made absolute sense after what I have had to go through in the last eighteen months.

We comment on Japan as we hurtle past. Little sign of any rurality, and mostly apartments and as we move further from Tokyo, houses and factories. The journey flies by and all the worries that I may have had last night about catching a train in a strange country fly away with it.

Carol and her family leave the train at Nagawa and I carry on for another 15 minutes to Kyoto. Kyoto used to be the capital of China. In fact, they loved it so much that when they changed the capital, they decided to keep all the same letters. Just sort of bung them in another order.

It’s definitely an old town. Think Manchester to London perhaps and as such it seems more accessible and I like it immediately.

The hotel is a big step up. It’s posh.

You always know where Hotel is on the scale of posh if the receptions on the eighth floor and the rooms good downwards. I drop my bags off but check-in is not for another 15 minutes and in Japan, that means that check in is not for another 15 minutes, so I find a little coffee shop aptly named “Fluffy Café“. Perhaps it’s where employees in the Japanese porn industry retire to for a cup of coffee and a cirque monsieur. That’s what I have and a slice of delicious cake.

Still got time to go before the check in time is allowed so its a wander round a delicious department store at the end of the street. I think I’m going to love Kyoto. This shop is a sort of mix of Selfridges with a touch of pound store. The menswear floor is a delight, though the prices of the items by Japanese designers, every single one of which I would snap up, less so.

The ground floor is a bargain basement and across the room is a shop called “Poundland.“ This department store came up as the home of Issey Miyake in Kyoto. Well, Mr No trousers is still up to his tricks. Not a sign of a pleated flare, but there are some beautiful pieces, which I have I have anything to do with it, will be leaving in a suitcase on Sunday.

Eventually, I’m allowed to check-in on the eighth floor which is a stunning bar and lounge area. Perk alert. Free coffee and tea between nine and midday and free beer and wine between six and

nine in the evening on the third floor for welcomed guests-of which I’m evidently one.

The room’s on the seventh floor. The only hotel I’ve previously stayed in where the rooms were below reception was a Travelodge in West Finchley. And this is certainly a cut above that.

The room is a delight with a king-size double and… Yes! Two pairs of silk pyjamas. Perhaps that’s telling me to have a friend over. The friend I’m thinking of is well over 13 1/2 thousand miles away and is probably not going to make it for the weekend.

There’s a glorious bathroom hidden behind the door behind another door. There is probably the most technically competent toilet yet. I’m still waiting for the one that talks to me, but given my middle age propensity to visit the loo during the night, a talking toilet, might not be the best bedroom companion.

And the piece de resistance is by the window, with a glorious seventh floor view, a chaise longue.

Always been partial to a chaise longue. I bounced on one at the Theatre Royal York, and I lay recumbent on one at drama school. I will be happy here.

But no time to recline in Lady Bracknell fashion. I’s time for my Samurai sword session and kendo class.

So it’s kendo, not kendo and it’s the ancient samurai arts of sword and fan. We watched a demonstration and then were able to have a go with a tutor. I did more damage with the fan than the sword. Nearly had the tutors eye out. But if that T Cruise boy ever makes The Penultimate Samurai I’m a shoe in - or perhaps that should be a shogun in!!!!

I love Kyoto. Great shops and a really cool laid back feel.

Dinner for one tonight on the eighth floor of the hotel…where else?