Land of the Rising & Roasting Sun

35 degrees. 80% humidity. It was 30 when we left the room at 7am, and its 29 now, at 10.30pm. The merciless heat continues. So do our adventures though and today was a big one.
We were up by 620 for a 750am bus tour of Kyoto and Nara. With the train and walk times both around 25minutes, we opted to just head out on foot, giving some time to find our way and grab breakfast on the go.
We found the tour pickup point without too much trouble, about 15 tourists here, and 25 to pick up in Kyoto. The bus was comfy and cool, we were assigned 4 seats in row 10.
The tour itinerary consisted of four main attractions throughout the day -
1. Kyoto Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji)
2. Kyoto Arashiyama & Bamboo Forest
3. Kyoto 1000 gates Fushimi Inari Taisha
4. Nara and 'Feeding/Petting the Deer'
First stop the Golden Pavilion. We had brought the stroller, but turned out it was really only usable at one stop. Nat would carry the sack of potatoes Zander in a harness and I'd wrangle the other two and carry a backpack.
We had about 45 minutes at the golden pavilion, a relatively short circuit by the main attraction, set picturesque on a lake, surrounded by forest.
Next, twenty minutes or so to Arashiyama. We headed straight up the street to the Bamboo Forest itself. A nice shaded, peaceful spot, if you could ignore the swarms of tourists. The Bamboo trunks seem to almost envelope you snd shroud the sky.
Whilst much of the group paid for a set lunch reservation, we went our own way to further explore the area and cross the river Katsura.
There was a nice bridge here where we spotted heron, a turtle, and tried crab sticks, some fried chicken and croquettes from a street vendor.
The next stop was the 1000 gates or Fushimi Inari Taisha. It was 15 minutes or so from the bus to start of the gate climb, where we had about an hour to spend. Not enough time to carry a sack of baby to the summit, but enough to pass through plenty of gates and see some temples.Читать далее