Japan Day 3 - more Kyoto

Thursday, 28 December 2023

Today started with a short run around the National Gardens which is a few blocks away from our hotel. Actually to be precise it started with a run away from the gardens as I sent us in the wrong direction for a few minutes.

It's about 4 degrees in the morning and climbing to 10-15 during the day which makes it nice in the sun and a bit chilly in the shade.

After a buffet breakfast which Zali loved as it featured rice and seaweed, but the rest of us were indifferent about as it also featured pretty cold eggs and bacon, we set off for the Bamboo Forest, a big tourist area about three or four trains away (it's all a blur now).  We seem to take way longer than google suggests we should for all these trips as we spend so long trying to work out how to swap between the different train lines and worse, train companies, and we always seem to have the wrong ticket.  Nevertheless we eventually arrived and headed up a very steep hill to visit the only monkeys native to Japan.

They were very cute especially the baby ones who were busy tumbling all over each other in a big gang - kind of like lambs. 

Back down the hill we walked over the river to the bamboo forest

- it was a fairly small patch of forest with a nice path through it - it was hard to get a good photo as there were so many other tourists and actually if it wasn't for the diversion to see the monkeys it would be hard to justify the long trip out. 

The areas around the popular tourist places are filled with interesting food stalls and tacky souviners but unlike other places we've been to, the vendors are not pushy and leave you alone until you want to buy something which is nice.

After trying some of the street food - Jett and Jon had an octopus skewer, Zali and I had a weird form of dagwood dog, we headed back across town to the number one tourist attraction in Kyoto - the Fushimi Inari shrine.  It took us 4 different trains on 3 different private lines (and 3 different tickets) and when we arrived it was packed as I'm sure it is for most of every day. In fact it was so packed the start of the walk up the hill was almost claustrophobic inside the red structures.  Happily the steeper and longer the trail went for, the less people survived until there were even opportunities to get a few good photos.

By the time we got to the top (about 40 minutes of steep steps with a few small flatter sections in between) we were pretty sweaty. Thankfully it was a loop walk and the downhill was pretty easy.  We stopped for an icecream before catching another two trains back to our hotel via the huge Kyoto Station.  

By the time we got back I was absolutely exhausted from so many hills and almost 30000 steps. I was content to get dinner from the supermarket nearby but Zali found an Indian restaurant 500metres away so we went there instead - I am already a bit tired of the slim vegetarian pickings that can be found in Japanese cuisine - the restaurant in Osaka was a highlight but since then it's been a bit difficult so the Indian was fantastic after a big day.