Early start to the day, as Jordan woke up at 5:30am. Set her up with Pokemon at 6am and tried to grab a bit more sleep, but this is something that Emily is much better at than I am.
Then it was 8am out the door to get the first of many busses to Ariyashama Monkey Park. That opened at 9 and we were the 3rd group though the door. And there was snow! 1 degrees and windy (but I did persist with shorts, which was still fine, but I did regret it very slightly at one point).That was a 20 minute hike up a bunch of steps and muddy slopes to 1600m above sea level. Up there, there was a playground with a Zipline! And more importantly, a herd of 120 monkeys. We fed some and had a great view of Kyoto. Several of them were fighting and chasing each other around, which we definitely felt was reminiscent of Egan, Athena and Nova charging around in Ormond. A few of them also were getting rather… Amorous… That aside, it was definitely with the 2000 Yen entry fee (total for all of us). So back down the hill it was. Jordan was messing quite a lot. This resulted in her skipping a few times and getting her pants quite muddy.
We took a sketchy side path to a cute Buddhist temple that is dedicated to their version of a patron saint for Radio and Electrical workers. Very randomly had a goat statue with a pink bib. Also a cow and tiger, but they were bib-less. We then walked to Ariyashama proper. Very cute area with street food (we got a great potato and beef hash brown thing and three fried shrimps) and shops. Also there is a bamboo forest path with another shrine. This one is where the imperial family would send their unwed daughters. If I overheard a random tour guide correctly, it is also where newlyweds pray for healthy fertility.
From there, it was another two busses to get to Kinkaku-ji, the golden temple. Another 2000 Yen here, and worth it again. The whole temple is covered in gold leaf. It was a gorgeous area, with lakes, rocks and waterfalls. It actually reminded me a bit of Sudbury, with lots of rocks, trees and water (cue the song!). Yet another bus and a subway to get back to the Airbnb for some well deserved chill time. We made a tactical mistake here of not getting the day-pass for the bus and train system.
We ventured out for dinner at 5:30, and our goal was to find a less dead area of the city, and we definitely did. First stop was the Nishiki Market, which was mostly a food market. Very, very busy here, and it smelled amazing. I got some fried octopus on a stick which was rather tasty if slightly overpriced, but Emily and Jordan declined to try. Jordan did get some freshly squeezed orange juice from a vending machine that had a cool squeezing mechanism. Great energy in the whole area.
We had been struggling to research a place to get our Wagyu beef dinner. All of the places were either super low end with reviews of bad quality or amazing looking places that were all crazy expensive. We resolved to walk around and look for something and stumbled on the perfect place! Jordan was messing a bit again, which was quite annoying after several reminders are the various temples to not run and such. Food itself was great bordering on incredible. Got a beef plate, Korean rice and three pieces of Wagyu Sushi. It was served with what I believe was real Wasabi, which is one of the best things I have ever tasted. For the beef itself, we were given scissors to cut it and grill it on the bbq in the middle of our table. Some of it was only okay, but the cuts that were good were amazing. Jordan ate it all up as well. Unsurprisingly, cutting beef with scissors is not the most convenient way to slice meat, but the whole meal was only 9,780 Yen ($97.80 CAD).
After dinner, we went for a walk through the Gion area in search, at least partially, for some ice cream. We ended up walking to Yasaka Shrine to knock off our fourth temple of the day. It was very cool lit up at night with these hanging things with Japanese writing on them. No plaques though, so not sure what the significance was. As we were leaving, Jordan found a little plastic figurine in her coat pocket that smuggled itself from Ottawa. Yes, this is foreshadowing.
We walked back to the the place we saw an ice cream and got some to eat by the river. They were almost like ice cream sandwiches, but the buns were closer to cone wafers. Mine was green tea, while Jordan and Emily got sweet cream. From there, we went down the incredibly picturesque Pontocho street to Pontocho Park where Jordan did some late night swinging and sliding. This was a cool area full of bars and restaurants with a party energy, even though it was a Tuesday night. We also passed some exotic dancing establishments that Jordan fortunately did not recognize to require additional explanations.
2.5 km walk later, we were back at the Airbnb when disaster struck. Jordan had lost the tiny figurine at some point and had a meltdown. I went out unsuccessfully to find it while Emily calmed her down. All told, Jordan did 29,000 (no typo!) steps and was mostly a champ through it. Though I did find out that the couple of times I had her on my shoulders, she was getting credit for those steps and I was maybe getting short changed because I was holding her ankles. Oh well, still a bucket load of steps. Emily is still hurting from her tailbone hit at Winterlude, so pretty painful for her after all that waking. And the bath in our Airbnb is a lie, where the water only gets up to your ankles and has faulty seal, so was draining nearly as fast as it was filling.
Jordan not listening shenanigans, missing figurine meltdown and many step pain aside, great day. Very glad we found a place of town a bit more energetic than ours haha.
Leave a Reply