Yesterday I decided to !leap! out of bed and visit Kyoto Station, and so I did. Here, as promised, is a photo-heavy, annotated account of my interesting and altitudinous day. Remember to click for bigger!



My photography skills are still somewhat below-par, but I took lots of photos anyway, and now I'm finding it very difficult to choose which ones to include in here. Above is (part of) Kyoto Station from the outside.



Directly opposite is Kyoto Tower, which cheats so much because it just sits on top of a building and pretends to be tall. At the top is a revolving restaurant and viewing deck, but you can see the whole of Kyoto easily enough from the top of the station, (without having to pay) which is what I did.

The bus dropped me off at an island in the middle of the square in front of the station. In order to reach the station, one must hop into one of the underground portals, as attempting to cross the road doesn't seem like a good idea.

The portals (of which there are many) all lead to the first underground shopping mall, Porta, which you walk through to reach the second mall, The Cube. After this is a choice of heading to one of the many, many, specialised food/souvenir courts, one of the many restaurants in this area, to the subway, or up to the station itself. Oh, or to the Kyoto Theatre, or to some fancy hotel attached to the station. A plethora of opportunities await ye.



But, at least the different mall sections are well-signposted.

After taking an odd turn and finding myself on some sort of weird balcony, I decided to climb the hundreds of steps to my right in hope of finding a nice surprise at the end. I found a big, concrete area which had some very good views of the south side of the city, but nothing much else apart from coupley couples hiding behind some pillars. So I found more stairs, and continued to climb.

Trees. A stone centrepiece. Ooh, a patch of grass! I'd made it to the East Garden, and started clicking away at the magnificent views, before realising that somewhere, a suite was playing from Lord of the Rings and I decided to follow that sound.



A crappy view of part of the East Garden, from the steps at the other side of the station.

I came to a balcony, with escalators both up and down, and realised that I was only about half-way up the station's full height. But I had a magnificent view of the main atrium, across to the other side, where spectators sat on the steps listening to the concert band, who could be heard absolutely perfectly.



I took many photos from many angles, and although the crowds on the stairs (right at the back) can't be seen too well in this one, a lot more of the station is visible. The photo above was taken from the middle of those stairs at the back.

Having a choice of up or down, I decided that the band and the other stairs were enticing me, so I went back down to ground level and crossed to the other side.



And there's a view from below. To my left are where the actual train platforms are. Yes, one must remember that this building does have a function, although it wasn't until I reached the very top and saw the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) far below that I actually saw a train anywhere near Kyoto Station.

So, I climbed to the other side (or cheated and took the escalator) and listened to the band for a while. I then decided to explore the inside sections that I had access to from this point. There were two floors of restaurants, a tourist information floor, and a floor with a library about all things Kyoto, Japan, and worldwide, in mostly Japanese but some English. I'm not sure what it was doing there, perhaps it was part of the Eki museum below. But I've found another source of reading material for my dissertation, anyway. At the other side, across the steps, was a very expensive department store.



A view of the band, and people, from near the top of the steps.

As I'd followed the inside route about halfway down, I crossed the bottom again and climbed up to where I had been in the East Garden before getting distracted by the pretty music. I followed the escalators up, and up, and up... And reached the Sky Walkway, which is a suspended catwalk that takes you all the way across the station via the roof (you can see a part of it in the above photo). I got some very good views of the city from here.



The Tower, again.



Looking down... (This may have been from one of the lower floors, I can't quite remember)



To the West!



To the East!



Hark! Something mysterious in the distance!

Once I had walked the full length of the Sky Walkway, I reached the Sky Garden, the station's highest accessible point. From here, I had lavish views of the south side of the city and beyond, and I also got to see the aforementioned Shinkansen below.



I started to take photos of the garden itself, when my (talking) camera suddenly informed me that my battery was dead, and refused to take any more pictures. I suppose it was my own fault, for not charging it in two weeks and also attempting to video record the band with sound, which sort of worked but not really. So, I enjoyed the views a little more, and eventually went back down and caught the bus to Shijo-Kawaramachi and wandered around there for a while, before somehow being sketched at the bus stop on my way back (see below). An interesting end to an interesting day. Interesting is such a pedestrian word.