Japan: The Lost Entry on Hirobun

(Just found two entries to the blog that never made the light.)

The train ride from Nagoya to Kyoto was a bit chaos when we purchased our reserved seat tickets. In Tokyo we only had to purchase one ticket for Japan Rail (JR) line to Nagoya. When we purchased our tickets, the process was pretty much the same, or so I thought. When we tried to enter the gate in Nagoya we were told we had to buy a second ticket that was a basic fair in addition to our reserved seat ticket. I just posted a blog entry with a check list of things Japan should consider before the Olympics. While Japan’s rail system is extremely extensive, the ticketing system and payment card system is extremely confusing because the vast number of cards and ticketing rules. 

Upon our arrival at the Granvia Hotel, we did get a little lost. Personally my sense of direction has been off for most of this trip. Typically my sense of north, south, east and west is pretty dependable but in Japan, that’s not the case. We finally realized that the hotel is actually apart of the Kyoto Station, it’s literally on top of the station. When I was searching hotels for this trip, as much as I could, I tried to book us hotels that have strong connections to the LGBTQ community. When we arrived we made our way to the restrooms and happy to see the hotel offered gender nuetral bathrooms for members of the trans community. 

Our first full day on the trip started with an outing to the one thing I really wanted to do on this trip. Japan has been a special treat of noddles and rice almost every lunch or dinner. The one place I wanted to experience was a noodle chute restaurant north of Kyoto up in the mountains. Hirobun is situated on a very narrow two lane road that drove up in to the mountains surrounding the northern area of Kyoto. The road runs along a river that stream down to Kyoto and set atop of the river is a series of restaurants that offer lunch and dinner meals. Large platforms sit atop of the rivers which are a elevated experience with the natural surroundings and the sound of the rolling river. 

The Hirobun restaurant took an extra step to creating a special experience. They have a large dining area at the top of the property but a smaller platform area lays below looking upon a large waterfall. They created noodle chutes on a sloping bamboo platform. The chutes themselves are made of metal for easy cleaning and they create two tracks with two sitting areas. The day before the hotel concierge called the restaurant to ask a few questions and found out that the restaurant had been opening an hour earlier because lines were forming outside of the restaurant. We headed out early and arrived one hour before opening and they were already starting to let people in.

Most of you time will be spent waiting for your seating number to be called. Once called you will queue behind your seat and you will be instructed to catch the noodles before the are gone. You will be give chopsticks and bamboo bowl with miso broth. The cooked cold noodles are drop down the chute in 6 batched with about 5 bundles in each batch. The sitting is timed and I believe its for about 15 minutes total. The end of your sitting is marked when they drop 3 bundles of red noodles which can be eaten. 

Overall the experience was a lot of fun. We ended up walking down the road after brunch and grabbed some gelato as the heat was already mounting.