Continued from Kyoto Day 1.

Another day in Japan, another Japanese breakfast. Love the egg sandwiches.

Nice, slightly overcast. Hopefully won’t rain and hopefully the clouds will keep the heat down…just a little bit. It’s been hot.

Rough.

The plan today is explore around Gion by foot and not get on any transportation.

Entrance to Yasaka Shrine.

It’s around 10am, the crowds aren’t too bad here.

Let’s wash our hands.

This stand got the kids, we came away with some knick knacks.

Perhaps even more of a hit than the knick knacks, were these bouncy duck hair clips given to us as gifts for buying something at the the stand.

Appreciate the light crowd over here…but the clouds are slowly going away and it’s heating up. Temperature will be in the low 90s today.

Exploring the garden behind the shrine.

RL helps a couple dressed up in rented kimonos take photos. Renting kimonos and taking photos is quite the popular thing to do here.

Kids, don’t fall in, and if you do, you are not allowed to complain about getting wet.

Made it!

Again!

And again!

They wanted to go again and again.

The girls wanted me to wear the freebie hair clip for Little KL since he didn’t want to wear his.

He’s complaining about the heat and complaining about having to walk.

I think this is a restaurant that backs up to the gardens.

Alright, made it to the top of the garden, time to head back down.

Japanese culture in one photo. One guy weed eating, one other guy holding a large screen so all the cut grass stays off the path.

This tree is quite the survivor.

You go tree!

Makes me want to grow horsetail reed again.

It’s really hot, we’ve been walking around, it’s time for some cooling treats.

Sakura flavored ice cream.

We sat inside with AC, nice.

It’s hot. Beer me.

Alright, let’s go do some shopping, well at least some of us will. The girls will go look for kimonos to buy and the boys will go park at a coffee shop.

By girls!

Gion right up ahead.

RL’s walk to look for a used kimono shop with the girls.

Coffee time.

RL’s photos, lot’s of new clothing shops.

Found it! 2nd hand goods.

It’s a coffee shop with a catwalk.

It’s cool, but it’s also very cramped for my stiff body. We came out this morning prepared, I’ve got my laptop to blog and Little KL has his ipad for watching videos.

Meanwhile, RL and the girls keep shopping.

Lots and lots of people dressed up in kimonos doing photoshoots. How do they do it? It’s so hot!

Alright, they got some kimonos and now we find lunch spot.

First choice was closed.

Alright, let’s just try something else close.

Can’t go wrong with a tonkatsu restaurant.

Modern meets old.

They’ve got 3 types of soy sauce.

Yum!! Always delivers.

Supposed to mix egg with rice.

Self pay station. We get a QR code for our table, scan and pay.

After lunch, let’s go back to our hotel to get out of the hottest part of the day. I went straight back to the hotel with these two while RL went with PL to look around for a chop stick store and a music store for gifts for friends.

We walked by a restaurant that serves turtles! Kelvin found it gross. I wanted to try it.

After the kids were all back at the hotel room. RL went to look at a small antique store by herself.

Lots of music bars around. Too bad it’s not really feasible to visit with kids.

Such a classic “Historical Japan” look.

After quiet time (nap for the parents and ipad for the kids), it’s time to get some family spa time.

They wanted to treat it like a swimming pool. I wanted to treat it like a quiet relaxing time. None of us got what we wanted.

Then it was time for dinner. We couldn’t really decide on what to get, so just picked somewhere close to our hotel…and this ended up being not a great option.

Cool to drink craft beer in Japan though.

Portions were small, the food was expensive and mediocre.

Wagyu beef, again, small portions for the price. I felt like we got ripped off at this tourist trap restaurant. Poop. It happens I guess…

Got back to the hotel, put the kids to bed and went to shower. Afterwards RL went to work fixing CL’s hat with our small sewing kit that we bring while traveling. Did the trick, good job mama.

To be continued at Kyoto Day 3 Part 1.