Our last full day in Kyoto welcomed us with a grey, wet, gloomy face as we set out to visit its temples and more cultured sights.
Our first stop for the day was the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine at Inari. We descended from the train and looked around, trying to work out in which direction we should head. It turned out to be pretty easy given the number of tourists headed to the same place, not to mention the fact that it's conveniently located about 200m straight up the street from where you get off the train.
The shrine has hundreds (thousands?) of red arches, each inscribed with the name of the company that donated it. They lined a path up from the main shrine apparently all the way to the top of the hill.
It was a fascinating place and we took a stroll down the path less-travelled that mentioned something somewhere about a castle. After strolling along what clearly wasn't the path that most of the tourists were taking, we reached another small shrine. It was a very cool collection of little shrines either being attended to or prayed at by a pair of little old Japanese ladies. The were bustling back and forth between different areas and Michael insists that at least one of them was engaged in speed-prayers between them all. I think that he managed to do so at that little shrine but abandoned his quest when it became apparent he may end up with hundreds of photos.
The boys were keen to head to the top of the mountain (40 minutes from that point) but Emily only wanted to leave. With Caroline's knee still suffering we told the boys that they could run up the top if they'd like and that we would meander back the way we came. Apparently the view wasn't worth the effort required.
We headed back to the bottom of the shrine and wandered down a couple of touristy little streets, finding a shop that would engrave chopsticks at no added cost. This resulted in us each acquiring our own pairs (I'll leave it to you to guess who Potato is). It was while waiting for these to be engraved that I wandered off and found an old guy cooking beef skewers over his little charcoal barbecue out the front of a butcher's shop. His sign had 800 yen each crossed out and replaced with the bargain price of 320 each, so I promptly requested 6 of them (Should have all been for me, but I shared).
I have to say that it was the best thing that I'd eaten in Tokyo. I'm not sure what it was that he was dipping it in as he cooked it, but damn that was tasty!
We next planned on heading out to the Kinkakuji temple first (the Golden Pavilion) but due to a rushed exchange about where we were going at the bus interchange ended up on a bus going in the opposite direction, to the Ginkakuji temple instead (the Silver Pavilion). Given we'd been looking to go to both of them it wasn't the end of the world.
We didn't spend a lot of time there as time was getting on and we really wanted to get out to the Golden Pavilion as well. I have to say that the best part of the Ginkakuji Temple had to be its gardens, including the rock garden (which the photo of keeps crashing my ipad each time I try to load it). I'm not sure if it was due to the weather being particularly wet or whether its the standard state of affairs to preserve the gardens amongst hoards of visitors, but you couldn't wander through them to the extent that I would have liked. Add to that the fact that some of us weren't quite smart enough to have water-proof clothing with us (that would be the males of the family) standing around and contemplating the zen was really just going to end up with a thorough soaking.
On the way to the Ginkakuji Temple I'd spotted an awning across the road advertising Day Cafe, Night Bar, Bear. I laughed at it, having no idea what that quite meant.
It was only on the way back down the street when we walked under the awning that it became clear to me exactly what Bear meant. I would never have guessed.
Instead we hurried back to the bus so that we could get to the Golden Pavilion before it closed for the day. We successfully negotiated the bus system and made it there with a good 20-30 minutes to spare.
It was worth the effort, but now even wetter than we had been before, no one was in the mood to particularly hang around. We opted for retreating to the hotel for warmth and a change of clothes before searching out dinner for the day.
Caroline had been keen to head out to Gion the previous evening, but weary legs and time had defeated us. As an alternate, we opted to head over there with the kids for dinner. Fortunately as we left the hotel this time the lovely gentleman at the door asked if we'd like umbrellas! Rain deflectors in hand, we again took off into the night.
Emerging from the subway, we negotiated our way toward where we expected to find bountiful numbers of restaurants. We certainly found plenty of them, but their prices were a bit beyond what we hoped to spend to feed a family of 6. A lack of any real guidance saw us head randomly Down a small street that appeared to be full of restaurants, but in reality was filled with bars. It wasn't very busy (it was a Monday night after all) and seemed to perhaps cater to more of a male business orientated clientele.
The rain was starting to get us down, hunger was fraying nerves and we were about to give up when we found a place with just enough English on the menu that we decided to give it a go. I'm pleased to report that it was a great success. We walked in to find the hoped-for barbecue tables and enough food on the menu that we were prepared to order (no gizzards for us tonight!) that everyone walked away happy with what they'd eaten and I hadn't had to take out another mortgage!
All in all it was a successful day. Tomorrow we leave for Tokyo and the final leg of what thus far has been a fabulous experience.
And in Sam's endless pursuit of weird drinks, today was the day that Jungleman was sampled!
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