It
cost 28,600yen for a night to stay at the Hyatt Regency Kyoto with breakfast
thrown in. With a bigger room, more
interesting bathroom layout and better breakfast, I would have preferred to
stay at Hyatt Kyoto for five nights instead.
Hyatt
Kyoto is located in the Higashiyama ward, across the Kamogawa from the JR Kyoto
Station and requires a little walking effort to the nearest Shichijio subway
station. It would be more of a hotel for
tourists intending to explore Kyoto and have a good room to return to, rather
than a hotel more catered for business travelers. Hyatt Kyoto is literally surrounded on all
four sides by remarkable Kyoto sights, which regrettably, I did not have the
time to explore all of them.
Opposite
the Hotel is the Kyoto National Museum which was unfortunately closed for
renovation. Beside the Hotel is the
must-see Sanjusangendo, which I did not manage to squeeze time out to see from
my previous two trips to Kyoto. I
managed to have a quick breakfast in order to get in just after the doors were
opened at 8am, in order to beat the bus-loads of students out in force for
their summer trips. Still, the students
do wake up really early and two buses showed up just as I was paying for my
admission. Across the road on the other
side of the Hotel was the Chishaku shrine compounds, which I regrettably did
not have time for. South of the Hotel
are more shrines and temples which I did not manage to visit.
The
western-styled room was big, and there was plenty of space to prance about and
may be do a cartwheel without slamming into any furniture. One nice touch was the different types of
Japanese teapacks in the room. It really
put me in a good mood sipping Japanese tea while checking out the
Japanese-styled bathroom. The toilet,
bath area and wash-basin areas were separated.
The bath area is traditionally Japanese, with an area for washing before
soaking in the tub. The acoustics would
be strange to someone not used to the Japanese sentos, as echos rebounded off
the stone floors of the bathroom. The
stool is a very nice touch. Finally, I
could sit down and use the hair dryer.
Breakfast
was good! Had I stayed more nights, I
would have been able to try everything from the buffet, especially from the
bread basket. There was ham, which the
sous chef sliced and offered to grill for me.
And I could order just one poached egg, to make room for all the other
niceties laid out on the buffet line. When the freshly baked croissants came out,
one of the staff came around to all the tables to distribute the pipping hot
croissants, even changing the one I picked from the bread basket earlier but
had not eaten. A pipping hot buttery
croissant is the right way to start a morning.
There was a nice Japanese-styled rock garden below the breakfast area,
but I wasn’t early enough to snag a table by the window overlooking the garden,
so I snapped a picture of it instead.
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