Japan Day 2- Kyoto

 Started the day with a nice jog along the Kamo River. Super peaceful with a wonderful walking trail all along both sides. Saw some old guy each day out hitting wiffle balls it made me consider retirement in Japan! 

First stop of the day was the Ryoanji Temple. It had a wonderful rock garden these things are so super detailed and kept clean of even miniscule leaves and debris. The temple rooms all reminded me of traditional Japanese dojo rooms (at least what i've always had in my head). Wonderful art on the walls/sliding doors throughout. Definitively a great spot for meditation; made me feel like you could just zen out there. We walked outside the main rock garden structure through the gardens and some additional cool shrines and monuments. There was also plenty of Sakura trees all still in bloom. 

Next up was the Kinkakuji Golden Pavilion. This was an interesting experience this temple was super commercialized. Tons of people and felt like it just had one too many coin boxes and fortune-purchase opportunities. We all made comments on how different and peaceful it was at the Ryoanji Temple compared to this one, even if this one was beautiful. 

I had my first Japanese ice cream from a vending machine here. Delicious! Think of like a klondike bar but also covered in an ice cream cone! All the best of an ice cream cone including the cone with none of the mess! We need these in the US. I probably had one daily from here on out. 

We went to what felt like a smaller area of town- my itinerary says it was the Ohara area- and we had to walk up this massive hill passing by a bunch of small vendors. We arrived at our restaurant and had our first "bento box" lunch. The setting was actually super pretty. We sat with James and one of our travel members named Susan and had a good lunch getting to know them. The food was a bit rough for me i was able to handle probably about 1/2 of it. I think had it been hot I probably could've handled some additional items but I feel like I tried to stay within what I knew I could reasonably handle. 

We then walked over to the Sanzen-in Mozeki Temple. Back to super tranquil gardens and shrines. At this one up in the top of the garden you could purchase your own little Buddha for good fortune so there were rows and rows of them. 

We left on the bus back down the hill and went into town to the Sasaki Shuzo Sake Brewery. Interesting experience to walk through a Sake brewery in what seemed to be the middle of town. Sounds like in Japan there isn't really zoning laws or anything like that so people are doing commerce and living right on top of each other. Right across the street was a little apartment. I remember it because a little kid walked out and it was the first little kid I had seen on the trip. 

Sake brewery was interesting they had a super cool Japanese-calligraphy style banner in their warehouse. No idea what it says but it was awesome! Of course they took us upstairs at the end to try some out. I had some delicious water. ;) 

We finished the afternoon back at the hotel with a presentation from James our National Geographic expert. He showed us several pictures he's taken over the years including along the US/Mexican border and had extensive stories in Malaysia. It was truly fascinating to listen to his presentations and hear the stories and backgrounds. I wish i was a skilled photographer. 

We were on our own for our final night in Kyoto. We were all already looking for a traditional food option after the bento boxes that day and the traditional meal with the Geisha's the night before (haha not a good sign!). We were pretty tired too after our first two days. . .probably still not quite caught up to the time change and the drag from the flight over either. We went to Benjamin's Steakhouse which is a US based Steak House similar to Ruth's Chris. The funny part of this experience was we were all basically sitting dead at the table, not talking, half asleep, until they brought out bread to all of us. We started eating our bread and suddenly everyone had some energy and the table started chatting. Mike noticed that the bread was the catalyst for our renewed energy and we all laughed and it became a theme of the trip looking for bread!

Food was good it was a taste of American food but the fun of it was the memory of the bread waking us all up. 

Kyoto came and went so quick! Blink and it's over. We tried to walk to a garden in town after dinner but it was closed and we ended up walking in the dark for a long stretch. Never felt unsafe or anything. . . quite honestly its crazy how dead it can feel in the city when you're still in a big city! 

I don't think I got any pictures of 7-Eleven! Hopefully I find some later. I know we were marco-poloing our kids showing them that even on the other side of the world everyone needs their convenience stores. The 7-Elevens did not have the sacred Grape Red Bull that we were seeking the entire trip (appears it's exclusive to Japan but also only seasonal) but they did have some delicious baked goods and of course our needed Coke drinks. 7-Eleven was the primary convenience store (besides vending machines) in all the bigger cities we saw.