Lazy morning of pancakes again, and FaceTiming family in Australia. Nice to have family close to our day and time again. Then we were off on the bikes for another day of temples and ninjas!
Our first stop was the Fushimi-Imari Temple famous for it’s thousands of vermillion gates. This being a HUGE holiday in Japan, it was swarming with people.
Another big thing to do here, is rent kimono’s and wander around taking pictures in them. So play a game of I spy, to see how many you can count.
We then rode/walked our bikes to the Sanjusangendo-do Temple which is known for it’s hundreds of statues of Buddha, similar to the terra cotta warriors. No photos allowed inside, of course.
Then it was on to the Kiyomizu-dera Temple, at this point the kids called mercy! They were temple’d out. So we did a short loop through, and called it good.
We tried going to a park, but it turned out to be another temple.
So we rode to what we thought for sure was a park. Well it was, but this was it. So pitiful…
So we scrapped the playground idea and knew we needed to search for some food. Everyone was starting to melt down a bit. We also had reservations for the Ninja History Museum, and Experience at 4:30, so we needed to eat a bit prior. We tried for real food but ended up going quick and simple with Mo’s Burgers again. Then we walked across to Shinkyogoku Shopping Street. The ninja museum was located here, and we thought we’d kill some time.
The kids were besides themselves at this point to get to the ninja experience. So we just headed straight there, got signed in, and suited up!
They gave us a 30 minute history of Samurai’s in Japan.
Then they sent us upstairs to practice our ninja skills! Also please not this group had about 20+ people in it. However, only one other family decided to dress up as ninjas. 🙂 Come on, when in Japan!
We wrapped it up about 6pm, and then realized we needed to bike back to our apartment still. Also now it was dark. So we skipped dinner there, and hopped on the bikes. It was so nice to get away from the crowds of people. We ended up heading straight to the mall, since the food court naan and butter chicken was requested for the third night in a row by the kids. Why not make it easy on ourselves.
Yummy food was again consumed, before our final and quick bike ride back home. The kids got jammies on, and we got some laundry started. Last time with laundry facilities till we make it home!
Another full day in Kyoto, feels like we got our fill of temples in. Tomorrow we take the bullet train to TOKYO! Our final city in Japan. Wish us luck, surviving all the people.
