Arrive at Osaka (KIX) airport.  After clearing immigration and customs, proceed to the JR Ticket office (go outside the terminal, across a bridge, on level 2F).  There you can exchange your JR vouchers for the actual JR passes.  Expect this to take a little while – very paperwork-intensive.

You can immediately use those passes to get the express train to Kyoto!  Get them from the same agent that gives you your vouchers.

How to use your JR Pass

This wasn’t obvious to us.  JR trains are either reserved or non-reserved (sometimes a train will have some cars of each type). Since seat reservations are covered by your JR pass, you may as well get one whenever you can.  The Kyoto airport train is reserved.

To ride a reserved train:

• Make a reservation at a JR ticket office (you can’t do this at an automated machine)
• The agent will give you a seat reservation card for each person.  These look like tickets, but they are NOT tickets.
• To get into the boarding area, go to the human ticket collector (usually at one end or the other of the turnstyles).  Show them your JR pass.  You do not need to show them your seat reservation.  You cannot go thru a turnstyle with your JR pass, or with the seat reservation cards.
• Board the train.  A conductor might ask to see your seat reservation cards at some point on the trip.
• To exit, you must again find the human ticket collector near the turnstyles.  Show them your JR pass again.  The seat reservation cards again will not work in the turnstyles.

To ride an unreserved train:  just show your pass to a human at the turnstyles, both entering and leaving.

Getting to Kyoto

Take the Kansai Airport Express – the train line name is Haruka.  It goes directly from Osaka (KIX) airport to Kyoto’s main station, and takes about 70 minutes.

One trick at Kyoto station is finding your way out!  Remember you have to find an exit with a human.  We mistakenly followed signs for the central underground exit and wound up at a turnstyle-only exit and had to double back.  I believe all of the main floor exits have humans – certainly the central exit does.

This map of the station might help, and then again, it might not

Staying in Kyoto

I recommend staying right near Kyoto station.  We stayed at the Hotel Vista Kyoto and it worked out great.  This hotel is on the south side of the station, just across the street.   The station is a focus for local Kyoto transit, plus it makes it very easy to get the train for day trips.

Kyoto Station

Kyoto station is a HUGE station with many different “malls”.  You can spend a day just exploring it.  The interior is striking, and there’s a fun garden on the roof (below right are the stairs / escalators leading up to it).  In between and underground are all kinds of stores and restaurants.  Exploring the station the day you arrive is a good way to stay awake until you have to crash.  It’s also a fine place to explore late at night if some of the family just wants to hang out in the hotel after dinner.  There is even a skyway that runs the length of the station overhead – enter from the restaurants around the 10th floor (I think) on the east side, or the long escalator on the west side.

Note: Kyoto Station appears to be quite the lovers lane at night.