Onigiri for the road
Check-out from Tokyo and off to Kyoto. Before the train, onigiri from a shop at Tokyo Station. BB Bagel got the rice, and he was loud about it.
Then the Shinkansen, Bagel’s first.
And Mt Fuji out the window, snow on top and not a cloud on it.
Kyoto Station
Lunch was tonkatsu at Katsukura in Kyoto Station, and a samurai helmet set was already on sale for Children’s Day in May. Bought one for Bagel. Just kidding.
One insider story from that lunch. We left our luggage outside Katsukura, the SG60 one, and went in to eat. After the meal we happily picked up everything, strapped Bagel on and walked away, very pleased with how smoothly travelling with a baby was going. That lasted right until it was time to head to Kamuroan, when I realised the luggage was still upstairs, parked outside the restaurant. Lucky we hadn’t got in the cab yet. Hahahaha.
Kamuroan, take four
Then a cab to Kamuroan, the little inn in Higashiyama that’s our home in Kyoto every time.
This was our fourth stay, and each one marks a chapter. 2018, when we’d just got together. January 2024, our first trip back after Covid. November 2024, when Minmin was pregnant with Bagel. And now 2026, with Bagel turning one. The okami has watched us go from dating to married to parents, and this time she got to carry the reason for the last one.
Dinner was a Family Mart run eaten in the room, because Bagel was starting to feel a bit warm and we didn’t want to bring him out. His first night on tatami, and he wasn’t impressed, until I put on the inn’s padded hanten and wrapped him inside it like a sleeping bag.
Postcard from Higashiyama, Kyoto
The little inn in Higashiyama that's our home in Kyoto every time. Four stays and counting: 2018, twice in 2024, and now with a one-year-old.