In the morning I’d jumped on a Shinkansen and then a local train to get to Hikone to explore the castle and surrounding area.
It was a hard slog given the temperature and number of steps it took to get upto the castle, but it was worth it.
As I wandered back towards the station to return to Kyoto I was looking out for somewhere to eat but nothing stuck out so I decided to wait until I returned to Kyoto to have lunch.
I chose to take the slower local train back to Kyoto as I was just looking for air conditioning by this stage!
The major train stations in Japan are little cities – full of shopping and places to eat. So I knew I’d get something good.
Spicy Masala, Kyoto, Japan
As I was walking though the station I spied a sign for Spicy Masala, a Japanese Curry Shop. I adored the Japanese curries I had eaten on my previous trips, so decided to head on in.
You don’t order with a human here. When you walk in there’s a ticket vending machine were you choose your dish, pop your money in and you get a ticket and any change back. You then take a seat at the counter, give the ticket to the server and wait.
I ordered a chicken curry which took about 5 minutes to prepare. While I was waiting I saw that the curry sauce came in an industrial sized vacuum sealed bag. Not freshly made in the shop, but it still tasted decent.
Despite the fast food, mass production feel of the meal, it actually tasted pretty good and it was a large serving that definitely filled me up.
But at the price of ¥980 it was probably overpriced based on the price of my ramen meal the previous evening.