Kyoto

Standard Japanese style toilet
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8/5

Prior to heading out to Kyoto, we make a stop at ToysRUs. We promised the kids that they could go shopping on this trip! The boys check out a wide assortment of bullet trains and gundam toys.

At 2pm, We took the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto. Prior to that we had picked up some bento box lunches at the train station. Our friend had reserved tickets for us on the latest bullet train body type (nozumi). The boys were thrilled to ride that. The ride was smooth and uneventful. On arrival, we hiked over to the Hostel (K's House). Had a bit of a problem reading the map and finding the hotel as it didn't have all the streets on it. We ended up in a room with 4 bunk beds. The showers and restroom were next to our room. In the common area, there was a kitchen with 2 cooking stations and 4 refrigerators. There were 2 sit down tables and 1 tatami type table. It was nice being able to cook and spread out in the common living area and relax.

Couldn't figure out what this was doing in the women's room.
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8/6

We head out to Nijo Castle by bus. We had actually thought we could rent bikes for the day, but the front desk warned us about the hot weather. Thank heavens we heeded their advice! Turns out the tour map that we were looking at only showed 1 of 10 streets! We thought we could get from site to site as it looked like they were at most 10 blocks away from each other! WRONG! It seemed to take 40+mins on the bus to get from site to site. Maybe, in retrospect, it would have been better to go the tour bus route to cut down on the transportation time.

Fancy hand dryer
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So it was a VERY hot day. Definitely the high 90s and humid. We went to the main residential building of the castle. No pictures allowed. We had to also remove our shoes. We walked over the "nightingale" floors which squeaked as you went along. This alerted the samurais of night time intruders. There was a tour route past the various rooms where they had manequins showing you how the samurais used the rooms. There were a lot of nice screen paintings in the rooms. The kids got bored awfully quick though!

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We went to the garden part of the castle next. The kids finally spotted a cicada on a post. The cicadas were making a lot of chirping noises as we walked around the castle area. Then we made a fatal mistake of turning back at what half of us thought was a dead end. That's where our merry group got split up and half of us ended up waiting in the hot heat (me and the kids) and the other half ended up in the air conditioned gift shop! We were so used to waiting for tony to take his time with pictures that it wasn't until more than 40mins later we threw up our hands and headed to the gift shop ourselves. We were dying from the heat and had to fill up on cold sodas and ice cream!

Small mini van
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Next we hopped back on the bus and went over to the Kyoto Studio Park Toei. This is a working studio where they film backdrops for various Samurai soap operas and most importantly (for coby) the power rangers! It was fun wandering the "town" streets built in the old style Japanese architecture. We went to see a Samurai stunt show. That was fun to see how they faked throwing knives and spears. The kids bought some plastic ninja stars. Coby especially liked a kids area where he rode a mini bullet train and saw displays of various power ranger uniforms. At the time that we left the Park, there was a thunderstorm overhead and we got completely soaked heading back. We also got on the wrong bus. Turns out there are 2 bus companies in Kyoto. We had gotten a daily pass, but for the other bus company. Oh well. Kind of embarassing having everyone empty their pockets of change so we could get off the bus!

On the way to the silver temple
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8/7

Today we headed over to the temple at Ginkakuji. this is known as the Silver temple. On the way there we walked on the "philosphers path". It ran alongside a stream that had huge carp in it. The temple itself was under rennovation and you couldn't see it. In front of the temple is a Mt. Fuji shaped sand mound. Due to the thunderstorm of the previous night, they were remaking it while we were visiting. On the way back from the temple, we stopped at various shops. There are mochi's that look like flat potstickers that is a kyoto specialty. We also tried some green tea ice cream puffs.

The philospher's path
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Next up, the Golden temple at Kinkaku-ji. This temple is leaved in gold foil all around. There's a big gold rooster on top. Also, on the hill above the temple is a Japanese character. To make the character, they've clear cut the area into the shape of the letter. On Aug. 16th the area is lit up with fire and you can see the character miles away.

After that we head back onto the train and onto Osaka. It takes us nearly an hour to make our way out of the train station and to the hotel. There is obviously no such thing as a small city in Japan! We have an apartment this time with 2 regular bedrooms and 1 tatami mat room (Osaka Weekly Mansion).