Kyoto (November 2011)

So we were off on the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto. The train was very cool. Chris took a little snooze and I was glued to the window... surprise, surprise :) The train was SUPER quiet. Again, no phones... and hardly anyone talked for the 2 1/2 hr ride! When we got into Kyoto, we only had one day there, so we had to use our time wisely. Again, a reason the backpacks would come in handy....

We really wanted to see the Fushimi Inari Shrine, a series of thousands of orangish-red Torii gates. These gates begin at the base of a mountain and weave along a 4K path up and down the mountain. Along the way, there are of course many temples as well. Kyoto is very well known for temples. The tough thing about getting Fushimi Inari into our trip was that it was in the opposite direction of our 'hotel'... so off we went on a 4K hike up the mountain with our backpacks!! Getting there was also a little bit of a challenge. No, Chris and I haven't quite caught up with the times yet to go with Iphones, so we went old school with some train maps and a street map. We learned very quickly that some trains stop at every station, and some skip a few stations. Oops!!! I may have freaked out at one point... not sure when the train we were on was going to stop lol. After about a 30 min diversion, we made it to Fushimi Inari. Yay!!

The tiny train station near Fushimi Inari

The fox! (In Oki, it would be a Shisa lion-dog.)

 Checking out the Torii gates...

There are no roads to the top, so any items for sale at the top are carried up the mountain. 

These old guys were beasts!

The colors were beautiful, and so was the view from the top!

Like always, we wanted to take lots of pictures of EVERY angle... but it's so hard to capture!! There were fewer and fewer people as we got to the top, so here's an array of some of our favorite pics of the gates...

After a couple hours of walking, we headed back to the train station, made sure we got on the correct train :), and made our way up to Kyoto station for the start of our next adventure... finding our 'hotel'!

A couple weeks prior to the trip, I found a room online at a 'hotel'... well, it was really like a trailer motel??? But seriously, it was one of the most awesome experiences of our life... After I booked the room, I received an email from the owner of the hotel telling us how to get there from the Kyoto train station, and we exchanged a couple of emails on how to communicate since his place was challenging to find. The directions were something like this: Take bus #40 14 stops, get off the bus, turn around and walk 1 block back towards the direction you came from, turn left at.... serious detail lol. It's absolutely amazing how great public transportation is in Japan!! One small detail about Kyoto in November... it is CRAZY busy b/c it's color season!! Our bus was packed to the max!!! When we got off the bus stop, the hotel owner was waiting for us in his little Toyota... I think he called me 3 times while we were on the bus haha. He reminded me of Papa... or the cutest grandpa ever!! He spoke English well, and was a retired police officer and college teacher. He rented rooms to college students and tourists in little spaces behind his own home. Our room was a little 'trailer' with a kitchen, bathroom and tatami mat sleeping room. He gave us directions to a great street for restaurants and walking, and even left us bikes to ride around!!! It was so much better than any hotel :)

Packed train station

Our sleeping arrangements :)

We headed out for some dinner and walking on a cool little street in downtown Kyoto. We found an Irish pub, a great tempura place, a tree lighting ceremony and of course some great people watching.

 <-Tempura place->
  Yummy!

This never gets old :) Those flies were delicious!

The next morning, we got up and decided to take the bikes out for about an hour, even though it was like 30 degrees! We had a great time biking around Kyoto... we thought we were going to find the Silver Pavillion, but instead, we found some other cool old temples, some hills to climb, and some great backroads!

My sweet ride

Chris is so visible! 

We stumbled upon this bamboo forest... it was absolutely amazing!!!

We probably could've stayed out biking for a couple more hours, but we had a catch an hour and a half train ride to the airport... also an adventure of its own since I just had a train schedule written on paper that we had to follow. We had to change trains a couple times, but I can't express enough how thankful we were of Japan's amazing train schedules... so prompt!! We definitely wanted to go back to mainland after this great trip!!