Good budget hotel in Kyoto - Toyoko Inn Kyoto Gojo-Karasuma

Day 9 hotel breakfast - green tea bread & toast

The hotel website advised taking the subway after you alight from Kyoto Station, but after we arrived at Kyoto Station, we looked at the map and thought it was possible to walk from Kyoto Station to this hotel with all our luggage. Don’t try this unless you’re crazy like us.

This Toyoko Inn was indeed further from the train station than the other Toyoko Inns we stayed at other cities, but the walk was still manageable even with our luggage. But we are still relatively young and healthy, and a 20 minute walk pulling our trolley bag plus a backpack on our backs is not too tough for us. We stayed in Kyoto for 5 nights, and during that time, we walked to and fro from this hotel to Kyoto Station almost every day. Not once did we take the subway while in Kyoto – saved us a lot of yen.

If we had picked Toyoko Inn Kyoto Shijio-Karasuma, that would have been rather too far to walk to the station. The shijio-karasuma one was also more expensive, if I remember correctly.

The hubby's hotel breakfast

If you’re using the JR Pass, remember to get the route map of the one and only JR bus running in Kyoto from the excellent travel information center at the Kyoto Station. I got mine a day late, AFTER I had already taken a non-JR bus (which means I have to pay the bus fare) to get to the top end of the Philosopher’s Path. If I had gotten the JR bus route map earlier, I would have taken the free JR bus (with our JR Pass) to a place near the Philosopher’s Path and then walked there on foot. Anyway, after that, I did utilize the JR bus to get to other places. Will talk about that in later posts.

Why didn’t I get the JR bus route map earlier? For one, I wasn’t aware there was such a thing. After I checked into the hotel, I asked the reception about the JR bus, but drew a blank. I had assumed wrongly that the hotel staff would have been able to tell me about it. Eventually I got round to asking at the travel center and got the piece of paper with the name of the stops/places the bus goes to.

The photo of the breakfast here reminded me that this Toyoko Inn (our third hotel stop) did not serve those little buns with different delicious fillings inside, but the slices of green tea bread made up for it - so staying here for five nights was okay. It would have been less pleasant if we'd have to eat five mornings of unappetising breakfast.

Oh, one more thing - the breakfast area was too small and cramped. So in the mornings, the hotel put out an extra table right in front of the reception counter. I had breakfast at this table every morning for the 5 days I stayed. Preferred to sit here as it was much more spacious, instead of among the cramped tables at the proper breakfast area.