Getting their hair done

On our way to Kiyomizu-dera temple we stopped in to get MV and SV's hair done. It turned out to great. They were both very proud of it, especially the decorations they picked out for themselves.

Fushimiinari Shrine

After missing out last time, we finally managed to make it to Fushimiinari Shrine with it's multitude of Torii gates. We lucked out as there was a festival of some sort going on and a number of ceremonies were being performed. SV was very interested, but MV wanted to explore the temple and its activities more. Paper cranes were amply represented here as well, however, the real fun was in ringing the bell and making a wish. There are heaps of gates and we only walked through a fraction of them before the girls found foxes to draw and offer wishes on. The fox is the spirit animal of this temple and both SV and MV were absorbed in their task before finding a bamboo grove. The discovery of the grove which we had to ourselves was really nice and unexpected. Alas it was time to make our way back through the Torii gates and grab ourselves a snack.

Evening out in Kyoto

After a good rest we headed back out to dinner and have a little wander. We went near the Misosogi River with the old narrow laneways and traditional houses can be found mixed in with heaps of different restaurants. We ended up having dinner at one of the restaurants overlooking the river. We spent the dinner sitting on tatami mats and eating Kyoto specialities. It was quite fun, although cooking some of the food at our table made the small room rather warm. After dinner we took advantage of the warm spring evening to walk through some of the laneways before walking back to the bus. This area of Kyoto also has a fair number of women dressed in kimonos and is relatively close to the geisha district as well, so it was no surprise to see a lady dressed in a lovely kimono walk down the street with

Nijō Castle visit continued

We climbed to the top of one of the towers to have a better look around at the castle grounds and the city beyond, perhaps even to see if we could find more fish. We then made our way into the gardens where we needed a bit of a rest and drink. Then the girls really enjoyed walking through the palace gardens. SV really wanted to get some portraits of her, but MV had other ideas. After leaving the palace we got lost in the nearby neighbourhood looking for a place to have lunch. We ended up picking a traditional little restaurant which looked inviting. When we say little, we mean little, it literally had 8 seats and we took up 4 of them. Once we sat down we found out that the speciality of the restaurant was tofu skin, yuba, which is a Kyoto tradition and the passion of the chef. We ended up having a ten course degustation menu made of tofu skin prepared in different ways, including as a soup and a dessert at the end. It was a real interesting and tasty meal with subtle flavours and lots of different textures. We even got to make our own tofu as we waited. The girls liked some of the versions, but some of the options turned out to be just a bit too different for them, they did really well though. The meal ended up taking a bit longer than we initially wanted and so we took a taxi to get home for a rest.

Visiting Nijō Castle

We caught the bus to Nijō Castle for a bit of samurai culture. This castle is very well maintained and is well known for it's Nightingale floors, aka squeaky floorboards. They were a sort of rudimentary alarm system to warn the Shoguns guards of any potential intruders. The girls enjoyed the space and the intricate detail of the castle. They were very sweet to each other and often held each others hands even as they looked at some of the recreated scenes. The gardens were quite nice too but the biggest draw card was the moat with the carps.

Our Kyoto house

In Kyoto we stayed in a rental house which had a number of very traditional Japanese tatami rooms. The kids and us both had tatami bedrooms where we slept on futons. We also had a tatami living room with a low table and chairs. It was a good house and below was a place that had a sign proclaiming Dr and something in Japanese which SV termed 'Dr I don't know'. Kids seemed to have some sort of tutoring or something there though in the evening and we had to stay relatively quiet.