Kyoto Day 3 Part 1 | One Day at a Time

Continued from Kyoto Day 2.

I’ve taken quite a lot of trips in my life, but this is the first one I can remember that I’ve had to attend video conference meetings during vacation. I guess times have changed now that teleconference meetings are more common than 5 years ago.

6am meeting means I wake up quietly, and then locked myself into the bathroom for my meeting. I also had another early morning meeting back in Taiwan, but that was easier due to jet lag.

Mid morning, hairs did, time to head out and see some Kyoto. We are prepared for some crowds, but hopefully it’s still early enough to be ok.

Still coin operated vending machines everywhere. Japan is still very much on the cash train. A lot of train ticket machines only take cash (well, there’s also the prepaid cards). I always have a pocketful of coins here in Japan.

One train, no transfers should get us to our first stop.

The kids really wanted to ride on the double decker train car, but I think these were the premium seats so it was a no go.

The regular seats aren’t too bad either though. Empty car.

Well, empty train car until we got to our station. Then it became very apparent that it’ll be crowded.

LIttle KL wasn’t watching where he’s walking, typical, and ran into a pole. Lol, but also, he was crying. He’s fine, just a bump.

It’s hot, it’s crowded. Japan is going through a heat wave and it’s 10F+ degrees hotter than average temps.

Fake crab legs.

Holy crowds. Last time I came here, it was super empty.

Fushimi Inari.

Maybe it’ll be a little less crowded if we go see the torii gates up on the mountain.

Nope.

Holy fucking overcrowded. This is terrible. We are just all being pushed along like a train up and down these steps.

Trying to get a photo of all of us standing still and failing. People just keep on walking past.

Fuck, this is terrible. What I remember last time as being a peaceful place is now hectic. Get us out of here.

We found a little dirt staircase, I think this may lead to the bamboo forest. In fact, I think RL and I took this trail last time too…maybe? If it’s still crowded there, we were just going to leave just as quickly as we came, and go figure out something else to do.

It’s hard to take a photo for a family of 5 and have everyone look at the camera.

It’s hot, it’s stairs, kids are complaining, but the crowds are thin here.

This is more like it.

Bamboo forest.

The kids wanted to turn back because they were hot. We convinced them to go a little bit farther. Come on, we finally reached a place here without massive crowds, let’s make the most of it.

In fact, this bamboo forest was so peaceful and nice we decided to change our plan for the rest of the day. We were supposed to trek it all the way across town to the Arashiyama Bamboo forest after this. But the crowd here, and the peacefulness of this bamboo forest made us realize that Arashiyama bamboo forest will just be a huge disappoint with the giant crowds there and won’t be worth the effort.

Not a bad substitute for the other bamboo forest if I do say so.

Say bamboo…or just smile.

Knock knock.

Oh look, no crowds. They all stayed on the main path and we took the dirt stairs in the road to the bamboo forest that leads to this cool little temple/grave yard.