Beautiful Kyoto!

Day 1

Today's adventure took us to Arashiyama area where we hired bicycles (steering is really touchy or I'm just really unco, nearly went in the river lol)!

Went across Togetsukyo bridge and 'parked' the bikes which have locks and keys in the back tyre, and hiked up to the monkey park. Funny monkeys lol

We still had time to fit in Kinkakuji golden pavilion temple. Great day with nice weather, glad we did that before it rained :D

Day 2

It didn't reason today but we took it the 2 umbrellas... Useless!

Ben is now officially templed out! This morning we went to the Fushimi Inari shrine with the tons of torii gates, it was gorgeous! Love the red!

After that I wanted to walk down the philosophers path so we got a bus to the silver pavilion temple and had a quick look there, the temple didn't have much silver like you would expect after seeing the golden temple but it has a gorgeous garden and zen garden (nearly raked rock style).

Ben was starving at this point so we ate at the first place street coming out of the temple and then I dragged Ben down the philosophers path with the beautiful sakura tees along it!

Got out the other end and wanted to go to Gion so caught a bus (or two) and made it and found Pontocho, a bit smaller than I thought. Silly me thought there might be some Geisha around here but no, wrong street!

Headed back to the hotel for a few hours of rest so we could go to the Gion corner later and watch one of the shows there! Made it nice and early for the 2ND show. In the show, they do the traditional art forms: Chado (tea ceremony), Koto (Japanese harp), Kado (flower arrangement), Gagaku (court music), Kyogen (ancient comic play), Kyomai (Kyoto style dance,performed by a Maiko which is a Geisha apprentice) and also Bunraku (puppet play).

So many Americans and their accents... Geez!

Apologies for blog entries getting crapper... Need better pillows to sleep better haha

Also Ben had only knocked his head once so far! Sure it was a big knock but not bad for how tall he is!