Although our entire trip was planned at the last minute, our Kyoto trip was planned at the VERY last minute. Every night while I was planning, Patrick would come home with another story about how he'd mentioned our upcoming trip to someone and they'd exclaimed, "Oh, you HAVE to go to Kyoto while you're there!" This made me very anxious and grumpy. For one thing, geographically speaking, this is like telling someone that if they're going to Los Angeles, they have to see the Monterey Bay while they're there. Granted, using the bullet train cuts the trip down to about 2 hours and 15 minutes. But mostly I felt like here I was planning my buns off and some random stranger was second-guessing my itinerary (which did not have time in it for a side trip to Kyoto).
So I explained to Patrick that if we did cram a trip to Kyoto in between our Fish Market/Odaiba day and our trip to Studio Ghibli, it was going to cost a bundle and we would not be having the kind of relaxing, well-paced vacation that he declared he wanted after our
crazy-go-nuts Christmas in Walt Disney World.
Since he was OK with this and I was definitely curious about the bullet train, I started pricing out our options for seeing as much of Kyoto in one day as we could. Again, I am not one for organized tours, but it seemed the most efficient way to cover a lot of ground, so I went back to the web site of Viator, the company that organized our Studio Ghibli tour. The offered two half-day tours and one full-day tour, plus tours that included tickets on the bullet train (henceforth to be referred to here as the "Shinkansen" cuz it's easier to type), but only for a half-day tour.
I thought about buying Japan Rail passes, but since this was the only place we were going outside of Tokyo, and they don't work on the Nozomi (the Shinkansen with the shortest trip), and I didn't want to feel obligated to mostly ride the JR line around Tokyo to save money on subway fare, I skipped them.
We decided to make up our own tour by buying tickets for the morning's first train (6am) and taking the full-day tour, which picked up from a hotel across the street from Kyoto station at 8:40am. The Shinkansen was to arrive at 8:11am, which seems kinda tight, but these are Japanese train schedules we're talking about here! (Tip:
http://www.hyperdia.com/ is a fabulous site for Japanese train scheduleswe couldn't have planned this trip without it, especially since you can't actually purchase your shinkansen tickets until you get to Japan.)
Id expected this to be one of our more intense and hectic touring days, but it actually ran quite smoothly. We got up around 5am and went downstairs to the Shinkansen tracks to hop the first train to Kyoto. We brought the bento boxes we'd bought the night before, but we could have bought food from a mini mart on the platform too.
Riding the train was so much funit was crazy to see the scenery whip by at 185mph! I knew that we should sit on the right hand side (as you face toward the front of the train) so that we could see Mt. Fuji if it was visible that day. I guess some days the air isn't clear enough. So we were very excited when we began to catch glimpses of it!
It was also nice just to be out of the city for a change of scenery.
As an extra-special treat, Mt. Fuji was covered in snow.
(Sorry, there are gonna be a lot of Mt. Fuji pix cuz Patrick let me have the camera
)
The train was moving so fast that every moment brought a new and different view of the mountain.
Now THAT's a new and different view of Mt. Fuji!
We got off the train at 8:11am, just like Hyperdia said we would, and made our way down the street to the Kyoto New Miyako Hotel, from which our tourand all tours in Kyoto, it seemsdeparted. The lobby was bustling with tourists and tour guides, but our table was fairly easy to find.
We passed the 20 minutes til the start of the tour by taking this picture:
The weather in Kyoto that day was lovelynot too cool and not too hotwhich was a bonus because the day before they'd had a freak snowstorm! Patrick's brother and sister-in-law had been in Kyoto that day on their Copy Carriatrick But Do Everything First Tour and got a shot of it:
Our tour was operated by JTB Sunrise Tours, and it turned out to be HUGEthree whole buses full of people lumbering down city streets choked with other tour buses. Fortunately, we only had to worry about sticking with our bus and its guide.
The guide stood or sat at the front of the bus and spoke into a microphone as we went. Her English was fairly easy to understand, and she even got us engaged in a little friendly competition with the other buses to see if WE could all be present and accounted for after each stop so that ours was the first bus to leave for the next stop. She was also good about not doing too much drive-by sightseeing as we moved between stops on the tour. But there was a bit of the "If you look out to the right you'll see the famousquick, look to the LEFT! There's another famous
"
This structure may or may not be famous
Kyoto was the imperial capital of Japan for centuries (remember that
marker on Nihombashi bridge measuring the distance from Tokyo to Kyoto?) and it's a huge tourist destination today because it retains numerous original structures of historical significance due to the moratorium on bombing there during WWII. As a result, you cannot swing a dead cat without hitting a temple or a shrine or a castle in Kyoto, and tourism has become a huge industry. (Dead-cat swinging, on the other hand, has seen a steep decline.) It also clogs the streets with buses and the sights with photo-snapping yokels like us.
There were three stops planned for the morning tour and three for the afternoon tour, with a catered lunch in between. Our first stop was Nijo Castle, the residence of the ruling shogun for about 250 years until power was restored to the Emperor. I confess to being childishly disappointed to discover it wasn't a big stone castle like you think ofit was more of a low wooden house.
Where are we? Who knowsjust follow that tour flag!!!
)
She's always beating me to EVERY travel destination! 
Well I'll bet *she's* never ridden Haunted Mansion at Walt Disney World and 
)
SO funny! Just to warn you, though, there are not a lot of actual Barbies there (I was disappointed, anyway)—it's mostly Barbie-inspired clothes and accessories. Although I 'pose I could just go to Toys Sure "R" Expensive if I wanted to see a whole mess of Barbies... 
Granted, going there does seem to intensify one's Americanness, but as long as you're not an *ugly* American it's kinda fun! Plus, the Japanese love American stuff! 
