Kyoto - Day 3

Our third day of our adventure to the mainland was really our last FULL day in Kyoto. I had scheduled a tour with a guide through "Tours by Locals" (a tour guide company that actually reminded my quite a bit of my step-mother-in-law (say that 3 times fast) Ruth - may favorite tour guide in the Mid-Hudson River Valley). ANYWAY, because I had a couple of places that I felt that we needed to go, I decided to go this route so we could tailor our day accordingly and not have to "think" too much about the process of getting from place to place. (which in turn we could have done, but this made it much simpler).

Our first place of business: Arashiyama Bamboo Forest.

To get to Arashiyama we took 2 subway trains and a trolley car (who knew there were trolley cars in Kyoto?)

The girls waiting for the trolley car

Alessandra checking out the sites from the trolley (think San Francisco)

And what would our trip be without seeing a purple trolley car? Oh, life is SO sweet.

 Arashiyama is on the outskirts of Kyoto. The little town gave us a slight comparison to somewhere like Woodstock, NY or Flagstaff, AZ (but Japanese and not quite so artsy). Small town atmosphere, with lots of small shops and places to eat. The walk along the river and through the residential neighborhoods was lovely and we could only imagine what the trees would have looked like in 2 more weeks. (Brad and I had a few moments of really missing those trees changing colors in the States there...)

The view along the river. Apparently this is the place to be when the leaves are changing. Oh, and cherry blossom season too.

One of the Zen temple entrances. Just in case you would like to purchase your own statue for the garden. Alessandra digs bald Buddhas.

Tenryuju Temple

The reason we take tour guides with us.

Entering the bamboo forest...

We thought this was only a walk/bike through area, but surprisingly a few cars came through while we were walking.

From Alessandra's vantage point...

Large bamboo and small girls

I love this photo - it's blurry, but makes me smile. I saw a photo similar to this when reading about Kyoto and knew we HAD to go here. Worth it - bamboo larger than I have ever seen. Gorgeous.

Once we left the forest (which mind you, isn't THAT big). We headed back into the town to catch the subway for our next destination. However, on the way in we had seen people eating what looked like cucumbers on sticks. If you know my girls, you know they are quite fond of a good cucumber, so we had to first make a stop...

The cucumber barrel.

Town

Main road with rickshaws.

Happy Aiello girls with (slightly) pickled cucumbers on sticks. Check out that "fair food" Poppi!

OH - and our first "beer" vending machine. We don't see any of these in Okinawa (I am guessing due to the many young service members out there, perhaps?). We knew they existed, but it was pretty fun to see on in person.

Some interesting yummies for sale.

Waiting for our next train.

Ahhh, I almost forgot. Rumor has it that blond curly headed girls get a lot of attention in Mainland Japan. (enter: small, but mighty. Blond, curly with attitude). We experienced a bit of that in Singapore and in Cambodia, so we were ready. Thankfully it didn't happen often (happily due to the large International population in mainland Japan), but when it did, both girls obliged.

Getting their photo taken by some school girls

And with some school girls...

And we're off...

Next stop: Fushimi Inari-taisha Shrine

One of Kyoto's oldest Shrines, the thing that makes this shrine stand out is the THOUSANDS of red Torii gates that meander up the hill to the entrance of the shrine. The forest is lovely and quiet and the bright pop of color through the trees is remarkable. Probably my favorite part of the trip - a "must see" place if you make it to Kyoto.

Kelly heading on up...

One of the large entrance Torii

It went on and on like this...

The map of the grounds and the pathways

 

Girls on the down hill

View of Kyoto from the top

Gorgeous.

After our visit and crazy walk through toriis, we decided it was too late in the day to head back to the hotel and crash, so we decided to hit one of the other touristy spots in Kyoto and do a little shopping.

This district has streets that people drive on through it, but there are mostly walking streets.

And lots of people and shops...

This was on the outside of the Studio Ghibli store. Not sure if you know any of the characters at Studio Ghibli (these guys are not any of them), but the girls were SO happy to be in there. If you haven't seen any of their movies yet, check them out!

And of course, you can't go to Kyoto without getting more photos with a pagoda in the background!

Olivia took this one for us

Self-portrait

Busy street

At the end of the day, we made it walking A LOT. Trains and trains and more trains. All in all... we LOVE Kyoto and would go back in a heartbeat!

Kyoto - Day 2

We slept well our first night in Kyoto (relatively well anyway. If you count Alessandra getting rolled over by Olivia and actually kicked out of the bed by her... Olivia flails all over the place!). We had scheduled a half day bus tour in Kyoto before we got there with JTB Sunrise Tours. We had to make our way to another hotel in Kyoto before we could meet the bus.

The hotel we were heading to was on the other side of the Kyoto Train Station (that's it in the photo here)


And here we are walking into the station. I loved this view (reflection) of the Kyoto tower.

Here we are in the middle of the station (it was so crowded during the morning commute time. I didn't get a good photo of the crowds,but here is our smiling Olivia on the elevator... going up! :)

Once we made it to the hotel, we checked in with our very diverse tour group and headed out.

 

Alessandra took this photo of Brad and Olivia on the bus.

Our first stop was Nijo Castle. Originally built in 1603 as the residence of a Shogun, it continued on in Shogun heritage through 1867 when it was returned to the sovereignty of the Emperor. The grounds and buildings were very well maintained and our favorite part was the "Nightingale" Floor - the floorboards were settled into place so that they would always make a squeaking sound, so no one could sneak up on the Shogun.

The girls and I outside one of the gates.

I think that behind Alessandra here is the garden area - with water springs. It was a lovely spot, but the guide told us that some gardens were meant for peacefulness, this one was supposed to exude energy.

The next couple of photos are from Alessandra. She forgot her camera on the trip, so she got to use ours. :) Lucky for you!

I think that Olivia must be Alessandra's favorite photo subject (although she also has a Wall-E figurine that she takes a lot of photos of... and lamby too of course).

Olivia in front of the "energy" garden

Our family - outside of the gate.

Nijo Castle.

Onto our next stop. The Golden Pavilion. Kinkakuji is a Zen Buddhist temple - and probably one of the most known sites in Kyoto. Covered in gold leaf, the temple surrounded by trees and picturesque landscape makes you feel like you were placed here 500 years ago.

Yep, it's gold alright.

Brad and Kinkakuji

You cant see it too well through the trees here, but we were actually behind the temple on a hill.

Alessandra taking a break.

Our next stop: Kyoto Imperial Palace
Kyoto takes great pride in being home to the capital of Japan for over 1,000 years. The buildings that we saw were actually reconstructed (after being burned down a couple of times, I guess when you build palaces out of wood that happens from time to time...). ANYWAY. It was a gorgeous place and fun to imagine what "royalty" in those days would have been like.

Heading into the Palace gates...

This was the official entrance used by courtiers who had been given permission to visit the Emperor. (There was also a special entrance for all of the Emperor's mistresses).

I liked the red/orange of the beams in this photo

Brad and Olivia outside of the main palace area. We actually weren't allowed any closer to the palace, but you get the idea...

Gorgeous gardens on the palace grounds

Our really funny tour guide (from Alessandra's photo perspective). He smiled the whole day (if you didn't know, Japanese people are not known for their smiley ways).

The tour ended at a Handicraft Center. We were able to keep the girls happy shopping for a brief time (while we picked out some wood block paintings) and headed back to our hotel.

We all tried to take naps (some of us were more willing than others). It ended up that Olivia and I went on a side adventure to Aritsugu (a Kyoto knife company). I will blog on my desire for new kitchen knives tomorrow (more photos of Aritsugu to come), but we had a good time checking out the Nishiki Food Market in the process.

Here's Olivia on the subway on the way back from the Market.

We met up with Brad and Alessandra at an incredible Soba restaurant right down the street from our hotel. Buckwheat Soba is one of my most favorite things in Japan - and most places make their own noodles in the shop. This place had a huge window where the guys were making the noodles and you could watch. (yes, I forgot to take a photo... sorry). We were seated in our own little room.

Blurry, but hungry people

In our own little room (or jail, if you look at it that way)

But, I will take jail with Zaru-Soba anytime! (Cold noodles with dipping sauce.. YUM!)

Brad and the girls outside of our haven of yumminess.

Kyoto - Arriving day 1

Well, there is no better time to start blogging about a trip, than the present. We just got back a few hours ago and after downloading our photos, I realized I already have forgotten some things! YIKES! Here goes nothing...

To get to Kyoto we first flew from Naha, Okinawa to Osaka. Kansai International Airport is probably one of the nicest airports I have been in to date (although I still love Seoul the most). We got in just around lunch time and landed on a man made "island" airport. A little surreal as you land (think San Diego among all the buildings or just landing on an island anywhere...). The whole airport is contained outside of Osaka (the second largest city in Japan). We got off of our flight, picked up our bags and (with a little tidbit from my friend Nicole) hit the fabulous food court. After a yummy lunch of Japanese food (complete with sushi and some pork buns) we were off to figure out how to get to Kyoto.

The best (and fastest option) TRAIN. The public transportation system in Japan is said to be one of the best in the world. It is quite incredible the sheer number of people who are using the system daily (yes, I have been to New York, but this is the WHOLE country!!).

We took a form of the Shinkasen (Bullet Train) from Osaka to Kyoto. (Not the fastest in the world, yet, we will save that for another day). Simply the express train to Kyoto. 5 other stops and we made it to Kyoto.
(Alessandra on the train)

After our arrival at the Kyoto Train Station (this was my first view looking out of the station - that's the Kyoto tower behind the building in the background) we had to transfer to the subway to get to our hotel. 1 more stop.

We made it to our hotel. The Citadines Apart Hotel is a chain that specializes (from what I understand) in executive hotels all over the world. I think Citadines is a subsidiary of another larger company. Anyway, our hotel room was very clean (most places in Japan are) and nice. A little small (compared to American standards), but worked for a 3 night stay.

After we got in and settled, we decided that we needed to get the girls out for a walk. We went out on a little adventure and hoped we would find some dinner along the way (another good thing about Japan, you never seem to have to go too far for good food).

Here is the river (blanking on it's name) that was a block or so down from our hotel. this was the worst weather we had the whole week. A little drizzly (which felt amazing after the oppressive Okinawan humidity).

A funky sign on a building in Gion.

We made it (on our walk) over to Gion. We were so close to the time of the day where the Geisha and Maiko are out and getting started on their evenings, but the girls were cranky and hungry, so we couldn't explore more here. Instead we made our way back into the main part of the city and found some food.