家族と京都で (With family in Kyoto)

We had one full day time to spend only in Kyoto and unfortunately it was raining almost the whole day. Nevertheless, we decided to go around and enjoy different places with my family while my friend continued his way up to Tokyo and the north. The first place of the day to see was Kinkaku-ji, the golden pavilion which is probably the most well-known attraction in Kyoto. It surely was an amazing building with the golden (not yellow as in some photos I had seen) walls and in the middle of the beautiful nature but the atmosphere suffered due to a huge amount of visitors.

From Kinkaku-ji we took two buses to reach the bamboo grove and we realized how cold Southern Japan's spring can feel when it is raining and we have to wait for a bus... Still we could also enjoy walking in the middle of a large bamboo area which kind of an experience none of us had had before. And it was exactly what the guide book said: hard to capture in a photo. Through the bamboo forest we reached a park which lead to a river. It was like from China or somewhere else in Asia with small mountains next to the river and boats sailing on it.

Our next destination was on top of the hills where there was a place called Monkey Park. One can walk among wild monkeys and even though the monkeys were used to people, there are certain rules one should obey, such as 'keep always distance of at least 2 meters to a monkey'. It seemed that the monkeys didn't know about this rule since they walked and jumped close to us even when we started to get back down from the hill. The only place where people had a cage between them and the monkeys was the feeding place when the humans had to go inside while the animals hang on the cage to reach some nuts and fruits from the visitors.

"Watch out for the monkeys", "Don't touch the monkeys"...

On the way back to the hotel we stopped by at the Imperial Palace Garden. It was quite simple with the straight roads and the trees as the only decoration, very suitable for Japanese style. We could see only the roof of the palace over the wall but at least some of the cherry and peach trees had started blooming to delight us.

Since the day had been tiring after walking in the rain, only three of us decided to live the hotel in the evening to go to see Kyomizu-dera which is maybe the second best known place in Kyoto. And it really was good idea to visit it after sun set because the red buildings lightened in the dark night were an amazing view! The cherry blossoms under the famous balcony were not remarkable yet but Kyomizu-dera became the best memory from Kyoto for me.

Kyoto is known also for its delicious fish dishes so as the last interesting experience there we decided to go for a puffer fish dinner. I don't think there will be too many chances to easily try puffer fish in my life so why not to do it when there are plenty of those kind of restaurants nearby. We entered a small but nice looking restaurant and ordered fried puffer fish and a hotpot to cook puffer fish, some cabbage and noodles. These two dishes would have been enough to fill only one person's stomach but since the price was quite different from normal restaurants we decided to continue eating elsewhere. The two dishes cost almost 5000 yens together and the taste was quite similar to coalfish. But it was an experience and we all are still alive!