Kyoto, June 2014

Before I even arrived in Japan, I knew I wanted to see Kyoto.  The city is world famous for it's beauty and history.  In celebration of 4 years of marriage, we took a long weekend trip to Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Miyajima.   Bryan had already enjoyed riding on the Shinkansen (bullet train), but I had not, so I, of course, wanted to try that out while we were here.  Kyoto was a beautiful city and we hit the ground running, starting at Fushimi Inari (1000 Torii Gates shrine).  It's a rather large park like setting on the base of a mountain, with multiple shrines, connected by the torii gate path.  And yes, I do believe there are at least 1000 torii gates, if not many more.  Here are some views:

Beautiful lanterns at the bottom of the mountain.

I wish I knew what the writing said.  Maybe it's prettier not knowing though, that way I can view the writing as art. 

We didn't feel the need to hike all the way up to the top of the mountain, but we did go much further than the majority of tourists and enjoyed the serenity of the park.

Left:  There were many fox statues all around.  They were pretty cool.   Right:  Part way up the mountain, where we stopped, we found another shrine that featured even more torii gates, of all sizes. 

There's a pre-school right beside the park, so apparently these little kids get to enjoy it every day.

After enjoying Fushimi Inari, we headed up to Gion around lunch time.  Looking back, this was terrible timing, as the main reason most people go to Gion is to see a geisha.  I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on geisha, but I'm pretty sure they mostly do their business in the evenings, not around noon.  So epic fail on that goal.  But we did still find some fun.

Bottom:  The Kamogawa River runs through Kyoto.  Middle and Top:  We made a quick visit to Yasaka Shrine, since we were there.

Left:  Unfortunately, that's the closest I got to seeing a geisha.  Womp! Womp!!!  Right:  These two pictures were taken just across the street from each other and made us giggle. 

This is one of the streets in the old part of Gion, where you might just see a geisha, if you came at the right time. 

Our last major stop of the day was across the city to Arashiyama.  The main goal of going there was to see the famous bamboo forest.  I won't lie: I was disappointed in it, just because I apparently had some unrealistic expectations.  The pictures I've seen show these beautifully open walkways surrounded by bamboo. So tranquil!  Yes, the bamboo was fabulous.  However, the huge amount of people who also wanted to see the bamboo prevented my mental image from happening.  It was not tranquil at all.  It was busy and hot and humid.  My feet were tired and I was feeling awfully pregnant.  We still enjoyed the area, especially since we again were able to rent bikes to get around the town for just a few dollars. 

Top left:  The view from the monkey park.  Top right:  The bike shop we rented from.  Bottom left:  A shopping street of Arashiyama.  Bottom right:  One of the pretty bridges in town, with the beautiful mountains in the background. 

Apparently we're into monkey parks, as we have now visited 3 in less than 1.5 years.  This one was by far the most difficult to get to, as it involved quite the hike up the mountain (see pic above of the view from the top!).  This particular monkey park was especially funny because they let the monkeys wander as they wish, but the tourists have to go inside a building to feed the monkeys.  So the monkeys are free and the people are in the cage.  Interesting. 

A pretty lily pad pond, the many people who also wanted to see the bamboo forest, and some vibrant hydrangeas (they're all over Japan during June and they're absolutely gorgeous!).

After a day of travel, lots of walking and 2 hikes, we were ready to crash for the night.  I didn't take pictures of dinner, but I wish I did!  We found a really cool Italian place where I had a pizza and Bryan had some amazing pasta.  Yes, we had Italian in Kyoto, not Japanese.  I can get Japanese any day of the week, but good Italian is hard to find around here!

We had another half day in Kyoto before moving on, which was a good amount of time to see Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Palace.  We took a long and crowded bus ride (but we scored seats!) in the morning.  There's not a whole lot to say about the place unless you want a history leson.  The pictures do a pretty good job of describing the place.  Ideally, you want to go during a super sunny morning, so the gold looks especially gold and reflects on the water.  It was hit-or-miss while we were there. 

The gardens around the palace are very traditional and beautiful. 

You get to walk all around the palace (but not inside!), so there were some great views. 

Bryan and I both took pictures of the signs in the bathroom.   They made us giggle. 

Our hotel was conveniently located right across from Kyoto Station.  It was a nice western style hotel, not much else to say about it. 

Baby Gal and I with our sweet ride!  We got a little bored on our way down to Hiroshima so we decided to take a couple of selfies.   

Next stop: Hiroshima and Miyajima!