旅館 Hotel
Tokyu Stay Kyoto Sakaiza Shijo Kawaramachi
557 Nakano-machi, Shinkyogoku-dori Shijo-agaru, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto
我們入住的是京都阪井座東急住宿飯店-四條河原町（Tokyu Stay Kyoto Sakaiza Shijo Kawaramachi），這是一家位於市中心、備受好評的四星級飯店。飯店地理位置優越，距離錦市場僅幾步之遙，鄰近各類購物場所與歷史古蹟。吃飯、逛街、去觀光景點都非常方便。
房間本身令人驚喜：配有三張舒適的床、洗衣烘乾機、微波爐和一個小巧的簡易廚房，而且以日本飯店的標準來看，空間相當寬敞。光是這寬敞的空間，就讓人感到一種難得的奢華。
不過，講到洗衣機這事，簡直就能洋洋灑灑單獨寫一篇文章了。就在我們要離開京都的前一天晚上，我把一堆髒衣服塞進了洗衣機。操作面板上的文字全是日文，但我心想，洗衣服這種事兒再普通不過，應該不需要費太多腦筋，於是便憑著自己僅能認出的那幾個漢字，按下了看似正確的按鈕。洗衣機啟動了，這讓我覺得是個好兆頭，隨後我安然入睡。半夜裡，我被一陣動靜驚醒，以為是洗衣機洗完了──當時我做了一個相當明智的決定：把衣服留到隔天早上再疊。
但實際上我並沒能那麼安穩地睡覺。整晚，浴室天花板上的除濕機不時啟動運轉，我總以為自己誤觸了洗衣烘乾機什麼不該碰的按鈕而造成的，便一次次爬下床去試著拉開洗衣烘乾機的門，卻怎麼也打不開。等到天亮時，我既沒睡好，心裡也沒底，只好下樓去櫃台求助。儘管雙方語言不通，難以順暢溝通，工作人員還是找到了「烘乾」模式幫我們按下了按鈕——我事後才明白，原來我之前恰恰漏掉了這一步。隨後又過了兩三個小時。顯示器上的倒數計時終於只剩下一分鐘，然而接下來發生的一幕，對我來說更像一世紀之久：那個「一分鐘」竟足足停留了將近一個小時。
眼看退房時間漸漸逼近，我們求助於侄女婿；他在網上找到了說明書，對照故障排查指南進行操作，斷定我們之前反覆嘗試開門的舉動很有可能觸發了童鎖功能。他找到了解鎖方法，很快便解決了問題。事後回想起來，我意識到這台機器的設計背後，其實蘊含著我未曾考慮過的安全考量與文化慣例——若能在一開始花點時間使用翻譯軟體，或許就能避免那個頗費周折，給自己找麻煩的夜晚。我終究明白，切勿低估那些自己不熟悉的事物。真是不經一事，不長一智。
大廳本身也有其獨到之處。在樓下櫃台旁，客人可以自行取用茶水；還有一台自動咖啡機提供多種口味的咖啡和熱巧克力——我丈夫特別提到，這裡的咖啡品質極佳，明顯優於一般飯店的便宜咖啡。冰箱裡陳列著各式汽水，而在午後時段，飯店還會提供兩種免費酒水供客人品嚐：一種是日本清酒，另一種是葡萄酒。
飯店的一樓是一間甜甜圈店，辦理入住手續時，我們每人都有一張能選兩個甜甜圈和一杯飲料的優待券。甜甜圈的口味多種多樣且富有創意，讓我們吃得不亦樂乎。雖然這是一件小事，但也算是對這家飯店的一個相當不錯的初體驗。
Our hotel for the stay was the Tokyu Stay Kyoto Sakaiza Shijo Kawaramachi, a well-regarded four-star property in the heart of the city. Its location proved extremely convenient — a short walk from Nishiki Market, and well placed for shopping, sightseeing, and finding a meal at any hour.
The room itself was a pleasant surprise. Three comfortable beds, a washing and drying machine, a microwave, and a modest kitchenette — and, by Japanese hotel standards, a rather generous amount of space. That last detail alone felt like something of a luxury.
The washing machine, however, is a chapter unto itself. On the evening before we were due to leave Kyoto, I put in a load of laundry. The controls were entirely in Japanese, but I reasoned that washing clothes was a sufficiently universal activity not to require much deliberation, and proceeded to press what seemed like the appropriate buttons, guided largely by the handful of kanji I happened to recognise. The machine started, which I took as a good sign, and I drifted off to sleep. I woke sometime in the night to what I thought was the machine finishing — and decided, sensibly enough, that folding clothes could wait until morning.
It could not, as it turned out, wait quite so peacefully. At regular intervals through the night, the dehumidifier in the bathroom ceiling would shudder to life, and I, convinced I had pressed something I ought not to have, would climb out of bed to try the machine door. It would not open. By the time morning arrived, I was neither well-rested nor confident, and made my way downstairs to the front desk for help. With language on neither side proving equal to the situation, the staff member managed nonetheless to identify and press the drying cycle — which was, I understood only afterward, what I had apparently skipped. Two to three further hours followed. The display eventually counted down to one minute remaining and then, in a development I can only describe as personal, stayed there for the better part of an hour.
With checkout looming, we turned to my niece's husband, who located the manual online, worked through the troubleshooting guide, and concluded that our repeated attempts to open the door had, in all likelihood, activated the child lock. He found the release method and resolved the matter in short order. Reflecting on it afterward, I suspected the machine's design had been shaped by safety conventions and cultural assumptions I had not thought to account for — and that a minute spent with a translation app at the outset would have saved a rather eventful night. One learns, eventually, not to underestimate the unfamiliar.
The lobby offered its own compensation. Beside the front desk, guests could help themselves to tea, and a machine dispensed several varieties of coffee and hot chocolate — the coffee, my husband noted, was genuinely good, noticeably better than the standard hotel offering. The refrigerator held an assortment of soft drinks, and on afternoons, two complimentary drinks were made available for guests to sample freely: a Japanese sake and a wine.
The ground floor of the hotel housed a doughnut shop, and upon check-in we were each given a voucher for two doughnuts and a drink. The flavours on offer were varied and inventive, and we made our selections with perhaps more enthusiasm than the occasion strictly warranted. It was a small and cheerful thing, and a rather good introduction to the hotel.
京都勝牛 Gyukatsu Kyoto Katsugyu Teramachi Kyogoku
604-8046 Kyoto, Nakagyo Ward, Higashigawacho, 529-2
「京都勝牛」（Gyukatsu Kyoto Katsugyu）是一家專注於炸牛排的餐廳。其烹飪技法有別於人們更為熟知的日式炸豬排：這裡的牛肉在攝氏 190 度的高溫下炸 60 秒，不僅能形成金黃酥脆的外殼，又能保持內部如寶石般粉嫩半熟肉質。我們一行人點了炸牛排、鰹魚排以及牛舌。
我先生覺得肉質稍嫌硬了些。而我則很喜歡每個餐位上那個小巧的個人鐵板——底部有蠟燭加熱——我會把肉排中心較生的部分在鐵板上每面各煎一兩秒再吃，這種做法非常合我的口味。
其魅力之一在於餐廳提供的豐富佐餐配料，包括芥末醬油、京都風味咖哩、溫泉蛋以及秘製牛排醬等。在享用套餐的過程中，逐一嘗試各種搭配組合，不失為一種悠閒而愉悅的體驗。當然，套餐也包含了米飯、高麗菜絲和味噌湯，令人倍感滿足。
Gyukatsu Kyoto Katsugyu is a restaurant devoted to a single thing: deep-fried beef cutlet. The technique distinguishes it from the more familiar tonkatsu — here, the beef is fried at 190 degrees for sixty seconds, long enough to produce a golden, crackling crust while leaving the interior a rosy, jewel-like pink. We ordered the beef cutlet, a katsufish, and beef tongue between us.
My husband found the meat a touch firm. I, on the other hand, took to the small personal iron plate at each setting — heated from below by a candle — and gave the rarer centre of my cutlet a second or two per side before eating it. The result suited me very well.
Part of the appeal is the array of accompaniments the restaurant provides: wasabi soy sauce, a Kyoto-style curry, a hot spring egg, and the house steak sauce, among others. Working through the combinations over the course of a set meal makes for an unhurried and rather enjoyable exercise. Rice, shredded cabbage, and miso soup are included, as one would hope.
高瀨川 Takase River
吃過晚餐及甜甜圈後，為了減低罪惡感，我們走到高瀨川逛夜景。
高瀨川並非天然水道，而是一條人工運河，由江戶時代初期的富商角倉了以（Suminokura Ryōi）及其兒子角倉素庵（Suminokura Sōan）於 1611 年開鑿。其開鑿目的純粹出於商業考量：這是一條全長十公里的航道，專供一種名為「高瀨舟」（takasebune）的平底木船通行，用於在京都與大阪之間運輸建築材料、大米、食鹽和木炭。長達三個世紀以來，它一直是重要的貿易動脈，直到鐵路網的擴張使水路運輸不再必要，該運河遂於 1920 年停止運作。自那以後，它便成了人們休閒遊憩的去處——在我看來，這可謂是它作為水道使命終結後的又一段美好篇章。
這條運河沿線有幾個有吸引力的景點。在位於四條（Shijo）與五條（Gojo）之間的下木屋町（Shimokyōmachi）一帶，每逢春季，河岸兩旁約有兩百株櫻花盛開；花影映襯著川流與小橋，構成一幅迷人景緻，在三、四月間常吸引大批遊客前來觀賞。沿著河繼續前行，便到了二條（Nijo）附近的木屋町（Kiyamachi）；這個地名源於昔日聚集於此的木材商人和批發商——據說這一名稱確立於 1716 年至 1735 年間。附近的「一之船入」（Ichi-no-Funairi）是一處保存至今的碼頭遺跡，昔日高瀨舟曾在此裝卸貨物及調頭轉向；在運河沿線曾設的數個同類碼頭中，這是唯一留存至今的一處，並於 1934 年被指定為國家史跡。
我們把夜晚時光留給了中京區三條（Sanjo）與四條（Shijo）之間的街區——這裡是京都夜色中最熱鬧的地段之一，街道兩側匯聚了各式餐廳、咖啡館和酒吧。以這樣輕鬆悠閒的方式結束一天的行程，實在舒適。
After dinner and doughnuts, we walked over to the Takase River to ease our guilt and take in the evening.
The Takase River is a canal rather than a natural waterway, dug in 1611 during the early Edo period by the wealthy merchant Suminokura Ryōi and his son Suminokura Sōan. Its purpose was straightforwardly commercial: a ten-kilometre channel designed for flat-bottomed wooden boats — takasebune — to carry building materials, rice, salt, and charcoal between Kyoto and Osaka. For three centuries it served as a vital artery of trade, until the expansion of the railway rendered water transport redundant and the canal was decommissioned in 1920. It has been a leisure destination ever since, which strikes me as a rather agreeable second act.
The canal has several points of interest worth knowing. In the Shimokyōmachi district, between Shijo and Gojo, some two hundred cherry trees line the banks each spring, their blossoms framing the water and the small bridges in a manner that apparently draws considerable crowds in March and April. Further along, the Kiyamachi district near Nijo takes its name from the timber merchants and wholesalers who once gathered there — the name is said to have become established sometime between 1716 and 1735. Nearby stands Ichi-no-Funairi, a surviving dock where the takasebune once loaded, unloaded, and turned around; of the several such docks that once existed along the canal, this is the only one that remains, and it was designated a National Historic Site in 1934.
We spent our evening in the stretch between Sanjo and Shijo in the Nakagyo district — one of the livelier parts of Kyoto after dark, with restaurants, cafés, and bars gathered closely on both sides. It was an easy, unhurried way to end the day.
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