{"id":51995,"date":"2025-07-24T11:20:32","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T16:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=51995"},"modified":"2025-08-10T23:55:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T04:55:17","slug":"kyoto-day-3-part-1","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=51995","title":{"rendered":"Kyoto Day 3 Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Kyoto Day 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\n6am 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.<\/p>\n

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\nMid 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.<\/p>\n

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\nStill 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.<\/p>\n

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\nOne train, no transfers should get us to our first stop.<\/p>\n

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\nThe 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.<\/p>\n

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\nThe regular seats aren’t too bad either though. Empty car.<\/p>\n

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\nWell, empty train car until we got to our station. Then it became very apparent that it’ll be crowded.<\/p>\n

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\nLIttle 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.<\/p>\n

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\nIt’s hot, it’s crowded. Japan is going through a heat wave and it’s 10F+ degrees hotter than average temps.<\/p>\n

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\nFake crab legs.<\/p>\n

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\nHoly crowds. Last time I came here, it was super empty.<\/p>\n

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\nFushimi Inari.<\/p>\n

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\nMaybe it’ll be a little less crowded if we go see the torii gates up on the mountain.<\/p>\n

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\nNope.<\/p>\n

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\nHoly fucking overcrowded. This is terrible. We are just all being pushed along like a train up and down these steps.<\/p>\n

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\nTrying to get a photo of all of us standing still and failing. People just keep on walking past.<\/p>\n

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\nFuck, this is terrible. What I remember last time as being a peaceful place is now hectic. Get us out of here.<\/p>\n

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\nWe 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.<\/p>\n

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\nIt’s hard to take a photo for a family of 5 and have everyone look at the camera.<\/p>\n

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\nIt’s hot, it’s stairs, kids are complaining, but the crowds are thin here.<\/p>\n

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\nThis is more like it.<\/p>\n

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\nBamboo forest.<\/p>\n

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\nThe 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.<\/p>\n

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\nIn 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.<\/p>\n

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\nNot a bad substitute for the other bamboo forest if I do say so.<\/p>\n

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\nSay bamboo…or just smile.<\/p>\n

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\nKnock knock.<\/p>\n

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\nOh 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.<\/p>\n

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\nMomo!!<\/p>\n

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\nLook at that little baby torii gate. Also, lots of fox statues everywhere you look.<\/p>\n

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\nMission accomplished. Time to head back downhill to the train station.<\/p>\n

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\nDown at the bottom of this are the crowds.<\/p>\n

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\nFound a quieter way to get down.<\/p>\n

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\nGot some super sweet potatoes for a snack.<\/p>\n

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\nIt’s really hot, in the 90s. After that little short hike halfway up the mountain, well deserved ice cream for all of us.<\/p>\n

To be continued at Kyoto Day 3 Part 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":53414,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-51995","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51995"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53460,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51995\/revisions\/53460"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}