Kyoto Day 1

Trains to Kyoto were pretty frequent but I wanted to make sure to get on the high speed train which required a little more advance planning. We ran onto one 2 minutes before it was about to depart but there were no seats in the unreserved car but since it was only 15 mins, we were fine standing. So because I had an okay experience with the local trains in Osaka, I made the mistake in Kyoto to take the subway instead of taxi. It ended up taking almost an hour due to the transfer and stairs with all the luggage. And time spent looking for an elevator/escalator. It also ended up that the price of a taxi would have equalled the price of all the subway rides for the 4 of us. We were all tired and sweaty by the time we got to the hotel.

After we dropped off luggage, I immediately called a taxi to take us to the Kiyomizu-dera temple. The kids loved the taxi. They were getting a little tired of crowded trains. The temple itself was crowded as expected but we opted not to pay to go in either and just walked around. After the temple, we took the recommended path through Ninenzaka to walk over to Maruyama park through all the shops and vendors. Lunch was a lot of street food but Christopher ended up loving these $5 meat buns and that added up quickly..At least, I had a lot of cash now.

Looking for fish in the pond

Window shopping

We had umbrellas again since the weather forecast was iffy and luckily we did, since it started pouring when we were at the second temple. The second temple (Chion-In) left a larger impression on me but honestly it was because it was less crowded. Everything seemed nicer in that case. We walked all the way back to our hotel from the park and the kids now that they had a taste of the good life kept asking why weren’t going to take a taxi.

Entrance to Chion-In (nice and empty)

Fall colors walking up to the temple

For our hotel in Kyoto, we were all in 1 room but it was large and on the river. The kids spent time just looking out the window and at one point Hannah saw a mama and baby cat. For dinner tonight, I decided that we would actually have an idea of where to go instead of meandering and I wanted to try to go to Ippudo. Surprisingly when we got there there was only 1 group ahead of us! We only had to wait 15-20 minutes and it was yum.

River view from hotel room