Arashiyama

Arishiyama Bamboo Grove

Kimono Forest

Kyoto Tower Food Hall

I read yesterday‘s post and I realized how crazy it is and how many mistakes there are sorry about that. I’m doing these blog posts between 9 and 10 PM at night and I’m absolutely exhausted. It requires me to go through my pictures and I’m also making a daily video for Facebook so it’s a lot but I do really enjoy looking back at these and I do read them so they’re mostly just for me.

I’ve uploaded my pictures twice and they’ve come in backwards both times and I have no idea why so you’re just gonna have to go with backwards pictures todayWe got up this morning and I made some Matcha for myself and Joel with the Matcha set that they left us. It was actually very good. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I really thought I didn’t like green tea and it’s still maybe not my absolute favourite but I did enjoy it this morning.it was fun eating at our little Japanese table

We headed to Arashiyama at 9 AM and got there around 10 we walked over to the bamboo forest. I thought it was really cool. The kids were not impressed at all.there is definitely a bit of burnout happening with the kids. They’re tired and we’ve seen a lot of temples and shrines and walked through a lot of the city streets. Nonamiya Shrine was just a teeny little thing Tenryu-ji Temple Was quite pretty but I think we might have taken a wrong turn somewhere as we seem to have exited before we feel like we really saw the whole thing

We were starving and we went to a restaurant that I had research before we wentIt had very cute Japanese low style tables in one part of the restaurant and we opted to sit there. Well, I guess I opted for us to sit there because I wanted to do those tables immediately everybody was very uncomfortable. Joel said his body is not meant to sit like that Trevor was also very tall and it was very difficult and this was maybe our first meal that we didn’t really love in Japan. We got a variety of different dishes, but the kids and I didn’t really love anything we ordered. The udon noodles were very, very soft and almost gooey in texture. Anna got sober noodles and she just didn’t really like the taste of them and Joel and I got some breaded pork on rice but it came with a raw egg on top of it so it was sort of slimy on top of all of the meat and it just really turned both of us off to be able to enjoy the rest of the mealTrevor on the other hand really liked everything that he had which was some sort of eel set

After lunch, we were a bit hungry so we wandered down the touristy area and got a couple of snacks. A lady gave us a sample of some sort of nuts that had a sweet coating on them I just sort of grabbed it as we walked by because she handed it to me and it turned out. It was absolutely delicious so we went back and bought some. They were so good.Trev and Joel and I got another daifuku which was the mochi filled with sweet paste with a strawberry on top. Owen opted for some dangos with strawberries and cream, which was interesting. I hadn’t seen any sweet dangle yet and I got a soft serve ice cream, which looked like vanilla soft serve, but was actually milk flavoured

It was a nice stroll through this area and it ended at Togetsukyo Bridge It was really nice in this area there were traditional Japanese boats and row boats around this was also the start of the 20 minute uphill hike to Monkey Park Iwatayama For some reason I think we all sort of enjoyed the hike even though it was a lot up hill! When we got to the top, there was a beautiful view of KyotoIt was worth it for the climb just for the view, even without the monkeys. But the monkeys were cool too. There were many warnings around about not looking the monkeys in the eye because that show shows dominance and they might attack you and you couldn’t bring any food with you up there.The monkeys were just roaming free in the forest. It was pretty fun to watch them. I enjoyed it up there a lot.

From there, we went back down and debated what to do. We had thought we might do a bike ride to another shrine, but the kids were shrine out and it was very busy so the bike ride would’ve been a bit challenging instead we decided to go back to our Airbnb. The kids had some downtime and just took a rest and a practice making her origami cranes. Owen and Joel Took turns using our jet tub for a relaxing bath. Trevor and I got a drink from rhe Konbini the way home and had a drink at our Airbnb. Then we went for a walk to a park that was near our hotel and we picked up some breakfast for tomorrow.

After that, we took the subway over to Kyoto station where they have a big food hallit was pretty neat very similar to one that we went to in Italy with Italian food, but this time obviously all Japanese foodOwen really wanted sushi so he picked up some sushi from a sushi placeAnna got a plate of Gyoza with a plate of fried ricetrevor Joel and I couldn’t decide what we wanted and eventually we decided on a Wagyu burgerThe burger was very juicy and delicious.

from there, we took the metro homeAnna got a turn in the jetted bath and Trev had a sauna off to Nora tomorrow. We will enjoy what’s our last day of sunshine in the Kyoto area before the weather turns to rain. 24,800 steps today!

This Wagyu burger came with gloves. It was so juicy, which was hilarious.

Anna and her Guse and fried rice

Owen sushi

The food Hall

The park that Trevor and I walked through

Anna practising her origami

Cheers

Oh yeah I forgot to mention at one point Anna was starving and she got this homemade waffle/pancake filled with cheese in the shape of a ¥100 coin these things are all over Japan at street stands

Anna getting her coin

This is the area near the bridge where the boats were

Wonky selfie

Pics from the monkey Park

Inside the little hut, you could feed the monkeys from the inside by feeding them food through the bars

They had this hilarious banana prop up there to take pictures with

Apparently, if a monkey looks evil, it’s probably just scared and if it looks not very threatening, it might be ready to attack

These are pictures from the hike up to the monkey park

All of the warnings of what not to do near the monkeys

These Were those delicious pecans we got that were covered in caramel shell

The kids have been having fun trying to find these special Pokémon men who covers that give you special things in Pokémon go

Here is Owen‘s Dango with strawberry

Our so-so Japanese lunch at a very cute table

This is a little art installation near the station that are all post that have traditional kimono patterns on them

This is at the temple where we think we accidentally exited before seeing the whole thing

After we left the bamboo Grove, there were signs about bears, which you’ll see below. Owen suddenly thought it would be funny to make these AI images with Obama again and him and the kids sat on the bench for 20 minutes, laughing as they made different versions of this.

Making the AI photos

More of the AI photos

This is one of the most purple trees I’ve ever seen

These are the pictures from the bamboo forest

They have these at every temple where you can pay approximately five dollars to get one of these wooden planks and you can write your message on it with sharpie and then they take it to some sort of ceremony and you hopefully get your wish Owen And he hasn’t seen any he liked as much as he did at the first temple we visited where he saw someone had written. “I hope I get hella money.” 😆 

This is the sign that was making us crack up

I’m not sure if this is how you’re supposed to sit at these tables traditionally 😜 

These are a special Kyoto treat. They are thin, mochi layers with sweet jams inside and they are quite good. we tried some yesterday in our day, walking around Kyoto and got some for our breakfast today

This is me following the instructions to whisk up my Matcha this morning

Breakfast at our Japanese table