Let’s take a trip together to the city of Kyoto in Japan: There are 18 Starbucks in Kyoto. And they have their own Starbucks card!  I think it is kind of cool that in the Japan Starbucks market it is not that uncommon for there to be city cards.  I sometimes wonder if that would work here in the United States.  A Las Vegas card?  Starbucks has tried out a San Francisco card before which was available just this past year.  I don’t know if there is really the demand to make it work in many cities.  I do know that people periodically come to MyStarbucksIdea.com to request this very thing:

And now back to the topic of Starbucks in Kyoto:  As mentioned before, there are quite a few Starbucks in the city of Kyoto.  A loyal reader, Noboru Sakamoto, shared some photos he took of a variety of the stores in Japan, one of which is a licensed location similar to a Barnes & Noble Starbucks.  The Starbucks “Tsutaya Kyoto Research Park Store” is the Barnes & Noble-like store.  Notice that the photos are fairly recent given that the marketing signage are Christmas 2010 signs.

*****Starbucks Kyoto Karasuma Rokkaku store:

*****Starbucks Tsutaya Kyoto Research Park Store:

This is the store that is like a Barnes & Noble store, and operates as a licensed Starbucks business within a bookstore.  This might be a little confusing because just a few weeks ago I wrote a blog article that Starbucks has opened up a second Leed-Registered store in Japan in Kyoto Research Park, but this is not that store.  This bookstore Starbucks is totally different.  If you want to go back and read about the Leed-Registered Starbucks in Japan Kyoto Research Park, click here.

*****Kyoto Tower Starbucks

The Kyoto Tower is a tall observation building with a Starbucks at the base of it.  (Someone correct me if I have that wrong).  Its construction was completed in 1964, and still today remains the tallest building in the city of Kyoto.  There is even a Foursquare check-in venue for this Starbucks: Foursquare venue – Kyoto Tower Starbucks.  Here are a couple of photos of the exterior of this Starbucks store:

Here is what the Kyoto Tower looks like and the view from it (the view is stunning!):

Here’s the wikipedia entry on the Kyoto Tower:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Tower

*****Sanjo Ohashi Starbucks:

We’re not quite done touring the city of Kyoto together.  Our next stop is Sanjo Ohashi.  This store is near the Kamo River, and has a lovely river view from inside the store.

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Last but not least, we’ll take a short trip to the Yasaka Shrine.  There is no Starbucks there, but since we are on a tour of the city of Kyoto together, this is a must-see destination:

I owe a huge thank you to Noboru Sakamoto for providing me all of these photos.  He is the copyright holder, and all photos are used with his permission.  As I reviewed a number of his pictures, not all of which made it into this blog post, I certainly gained an appreciation for the beauty of the city of the Kyoto.  Thank you again, Noboru, for lots of really great photos!  So beautiful!

I hope you enjoyed your trip to Kyoto.