Day 2 Kyoto
Our second day in Kyoto was long and wonderful. We were exhausted by then end. It involved a lot of taxis, bus rides and walking up two mountains. After a Family Mart breakfast we hopped on a bus and headed towards the Golden Pavilion. The buses in Kyoto are extremely tourist friendly. I think we got on one going the wrong direction once. We arrived right around the time the Golden Pavilion opened. There were several other tourists there. Ely seemed to enjoy this spot. It was one of my picks and ended up being as beautiful as I imagined.
This is one of my favorite series of Ely and Sean.
After the Golden Pavilion we took a taxi to the bamboo forest to save time. It was expensive, but when you have little ones it was totally worth it. We were warned by a friend that the bamboo forest is overrated. I'm glad they told us, we walked in, took some pictures and walked out. It's incredibly full of tourists, the picture that has no people in it, is a marked off path that I'm pretty sure you have to pay money to take a ride through. It's nice and I'm sure it was beautiful 100's of years ago, but I'm glad we didn't spend more than a few minutes here.
The street between the Bamboo Forest and the Monkeys was heavily populated. We were looking for an affordable place to eat lunch, when I saw the word "cafe" I fell for what I thought was an establishment that serves food while you get to admire owls. No food, just owls, which was ok because we needed the break.
This was my favorite part of the day. It was absolutely beautiful to come upon.
My children the entire trip. If there was dirt, they would sit down, play it in. There was one time when Ely literally washed her face with it. They looked like they had been camping 90% of this trip.
I love this picture with my babies.
We had to go on a small hike to see the monkey's. We were happy to take a break and let Ely and Koa play at a play ground on the way up. Near the zip line, we saw a monkey in the trees and then had him head up the hill. Ely followed him the whole way.
After a trip back to our hotel room, we took a taxi to the Torri Gates, Fushimi Inari-Taisha. This was another place that is heavily populated with tourists, the farther you get up the mountain there are less and less people. We made it to the summit. I was so worn by the end of this day, and completely and utterly wished I had worn stereotypical ugly, white sneakers.
Loved these beautiful purple blooms.
Orange trees
I didn't want to pack heavy shoes so we could carry on all of our bags on the airplane and wanted something easy slip on and off during security. Pack the shoes. Wear the shoes. If you are going to do the Torri Gates and the Monkeys especially in the same day, bring decent shoes. Shortly after this I took off my sandals and walked barefoot.
The summit, Sean is really into making it to the tops of mountains. This was a cool moment for him.
After this I handed him the baby, who he wore, and then also carried Ely because we were all done.
Worth it.
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