Kanazawa Zoo and Kyoto

What a week!!  We got back from Tokyo on Tuesday afternoon, went to Kanazawa Zoo on Thursday and then headed to Kyoto on Friday!!  We live quite the life over here.  Although I must say it may be taking its toll on the kiddos, particularly Cora because she threw quite the fit the other day...and today.  Maybe it is just a 3 year old thing, but Kevin and I were talking about the number of nights we have spent at home-home (Washington) in the last year and it is just under half (162 days away and 204 days home).  In May it will definitely be over half.  Crazy!

Isn't that "pop-up" book cool?

Hello Kangaroo, My name is Cora.

The crew that came.

The zoo had some awesome installation art!!

All Rope!

Riding the bus.  I wanted to be the Elephant, but my head was TOO big!

I couldn't get Cora to stop playing with these.  You put 100 Yen in ($1) and they tell you about the animal....in Japanese.  So she played with it at every animal that had one.

If you look close the middle of the back is the skyline!  Pretty cool.

She wanted to cheer the monkey up!

10 point deer!

Instead of a souvenir store they had a vending machine.  Stuffed animal Koala - $10, bath toys - $14, etc.  I just love the vending machines here.

More installation art.  Isn't this awesome.

Outside of the zoo, which was only $5 to get in, and they had the LONGEST roller slide and  this obstacle course that you could do to go back up!  Cora was really good at it.

That yellow/blue thing is the slide and it was fast!

This is from standing in the same spot looking up at the top of the slide.  Crazy long huh?

The view from the zoo.

Eating lunch with the kiddos.

Now the real fun begins!  KYOTO!  Kyoto was the political and religious capital of Japan until the 17th Century.  It has the most Buddhist Temples and Shinto Shrines (most Japanese believe in both religions without conflicts).  To get there it is a 6 hour drive, but we took a 20 minute bus ride, an hour train, and then a 2 1/2 hour BULLET TRAIN.  Kevin's bucket list out here in Japan had 3 things: Disnyeland - check, Bullet Train - check, and Snow Monkeys - (coming up in 3 weeks).  Kevin was pretty excited!! It goes at max 107 mph

Bullet Train approaching

Pretty cool looking.

 On the way we saw some amazing landscapes.  It really never got rural.  I got a picture of the most farmland we saw and it wasn't much.  Tall buildings everywhere!!!

Panasonic building.  It was huge and  shaped like the top of a Torii gate.

Farm...the most.

This picture was taken 15 minute later, SNOW, and then 15 more minutes, no snow.

 Our hotel was a block or two from Kyoto train station, which is HUGE, and had a mall in it, a ton of restaurants and shops.  It was always packed and busy.  Our hotel, New Miyako Hotel, was fabulous.  I am really surprised how nice it was.  We just signed up for a vacation package that included the bullet train pass, 2 nights at the hotel, and the one day tour, and was cheaper than if we had booked it on our own!  Our hotel room came with two twin beds which was nice because we could each take one kid!

Fruit tart anyone?  Don't worry a mini tart was only $50!  We got a slice for $10.  Delicious.

McDonald's, modernized.

 We went to the Imperial Palace on Friday right when we got to Kyoto because it closed soon after we got there and isn't open on Saturday and Sunday.  The problem is no one told me, after all the research I did, that you have to make an appointment with the Imperial Household or something Agency to get a PERMIT to go and it takes 2 days to process.  So we couldn't go in!

At the start of the longest gravel walkway (with Cora asleep in the stroller).  It was very difficult to push!

The Entrance.

The Main Gate

After we found out we were not allowed in!

The Imperial Bridge.

The only part of the Palace grounds that didn't require a permit.

On the way home we hit up McDonald's again as it is the only food the kids eat when we are out and I was SO happy to see my Idaho ancestry righteously honored!  Mmmm, delicious.

 So I was reading up about Kyoto and a ton of people mentioned dressing up like a Geisha and how awesome it was.  Well it was near $100 per person to do that, BUT to rent a kimono was only $25/person and to get your hair done was only $10/person.  I really wanted to get a photo of the whole family all done up (George as a Samurai of course), but they only allow ages 3+.  So just us girls did it.  AND IT WAS AWESOME!!!  You get to pick out the kimono you wear, the waist band, your purse, shoes, hair-style, etc. etc.  Then a lady comes and helps you put on the 50 layers you have to wear and dresses you.  Cora was so cute to watch!  Then we went to get our hair done and I just told them to do whatever with Cora's.  Then we get all day to walk around the city all done up.  A lot of girls do this to be in the traditional attire for worship when they go to Shrines or Temples, but most of the women I saw did it just for fun.

Cora about to get her hair done.  They got all nervous when I took this picture so I didn't have the chance to take a better one!  hahaha.

Cora's back

front

The girls!

Ta-Da

back

Cora's back without the coat.

Then for $15 I got to get a photo.  Aren't we just the cutest?!  People stopped us on the street for pictures or to tell us we were beautiful.  Cora had the time of her life!  And maybe so did I!

The next day we did a group tour.  The kids were pretty amazing for this considering it was ALL day with a lot of walking and driving.  We were the only ones with kids though so that made it tough.  I would recommend going with a tour though because I am not sure you could see all these sites in one day otherwise.

First stop: Nijo Castle.  This is where the Shogun lived and built a larger castle (almost double) than the Imperial Palace after he took power from the Emperor.  It was quite the history lesson we learned, but it was awesome to see A castle.  We couldn't take pictures inside though, which was the most beautiful because all the walls were that gold paper with paintings on it.  Pretty rad.

Main gate.

Entrance to the Castle

Saki Barrels

Japanese Garden with the palm tree shaped.  

 Second stop: Kinkakuji Temple.  Nicknamed the Golden Pavilion.  This is a Buddhist Temple and was built and then layered in gold, when it started to peal off I think in 1955 or something they re-layered it with 5 times thicker gold sheets.  Cost about $170 million to do.  Then the monks didn't want any buildings in the background to distract so they bought BOUGHT the mountains behind the Temple.  How did they pay for it?  They have an average of 10,000 visitors a day and it costs 600 Yen to get in AND it is tax free because it is a religious organization.  Pretty amazing.  On the first floor are some Idols, on the second floor is the main Buddha idol, and on the 3rd floor are supposedly the actual ashes of Buddha.  You can't go in, but I bought postcards with pictures of it.

Do you see under the roof the gold reflecting??

And a Japanese Phoenix on top.  Peace.

A bonsai tree that was planted by the Shogun because it looked like a boat as he would need to cross the waters (the lake) to get to heaven (the Golden Pavilion)

 

Grounds crew

Here on the left was a famous sculpture and on the right was a bowl that people threw money into (or tried it was hard).

 Third stop: Kitano Tenmangu Shrine.  This place was awesome because it had lots of Shrines.  It also had a stone statue of Mary because Christians came to Japan and the Japanese accepted her as another Deity and made an idol of her, but when the Emperor banded Christianity they planted a bush in front of her statue and it is now called the Hidden Mary.  We couldn't get pictures of it because of all the people.

The entrance

The main shrine.  People come here to worship because this particular shrine is supposed to make you smarter so they come when they have a test or entrance exam.

Beautiful

There are statues of oxen everywhere here because it was believed if you rubbed the oxen 's head and then your own head you will be smarter.  I got both kids just in case.

To pray you grab those ropes/fabric and ring the bell, then you throw money in the wood box, you bow twice and then clap twice.  There were a bunch of kids running around ringing the bells so I let Cora.

 After that place we went to a hotel for a "Western-style buffet"  Everything tasted fishy.  Except the icecream so we ate lots of that we brought pb&js just in case.

This lady was at the table next to us and kept picking up George and showing him off to her two grandkids that seemed a little scared about the whole thing.  It was a nice break of holding him for me!!

 After lunch we had about 45 minutes before the tour left so we walked outside, around the corner to yet another Shrine.  I guess there are about 1000 shrines and 300 temples just in Kyoto and we noticed everywhere you turned was some historic place.

Can you see the rabbit inside?  They had tons of rabbit figurines you could buy that were all white with red eyes, just a little creepy.

George stretching his legs and chasing after Cora.

 Okay Fourth stop: Heian Jingu Shrine:  We learned here that the color orange means longevity and posterity and so it is used a lot and white means purity.  This whole place was orange and bright and contrasts the white rocks fabulously.  I think this shrine was for success in business or something.  This shrine is know for the gardens which were beautiful.

That Torii gate (which is the symbol of a shrine) was HUGE in the background!

Main Gate

  

Panorama of the main hall

One side of the main hall.  Those horn looking things on the top of the roof are fish and it is said that  if you put that on the roof it is as if everything under it is underwater and will not burn down.  SO MANY of these places are replicas because they all burned down, well most of them.

I think a wedding photo!  Isn't it fabulous?

 Fifth stop: Sanjusangendo Temple, this was probably my favorite.  You couldn't take pictures inside unfortunately, but this was this super long building and it had tons and tons of the statue of Thousand Armed Kannon.  And in the middle of all the smaller Kannon's is the main statue which was huge.  The smaller statues are in rows (10 rows) and 50 columns.  I mean tons of them!  And the YOUNGEST statue in there was 700 years old!!  You have to google image this place...here is a link: HERE

The Sixth and final place of the tour was: Kiyomizu Temple.  This is the most visited Temple in Kyoto.  It is up this super winding road that isn't two lanes, but two lanes of cars go on it.  I was nervous in our huge bus. Then you walk up this hill of souvenir shops and then see the gorgeous temple!  This temple's name mean's Pure Water because there is a natural spring that runs under it that if you drink from one of the 3 outlets you get a different blessing depending on which one.  This temple is built of the side of a mountain and doesn't have one nail supporting it!

The souvenir shop road.

The main gate and the Temple.

The main bell to arouse the deities.

Panoramic view from the temple.

Backside.

The main Buddha here is the god of love and "good matches"  Ah, cute.

The spring water.  The line to drink was huge so we skipped it.

Walking back and we look up the street and see this...another temple!

This kid came up to us and asked us where we were from and we said Seattle and he was super excited and then said he was from Korea and had we heard of Gangnam Style, hahaha, we said OF COURSE and he asked us if he could take a picture with us.  Pretty awesome to put on your facebook, a picture of an American family with two kids, so we got his picture too!

 The main district where are the Geisha schools are is the Gion District.

Here is a major street of the Gion District.

 

A few girls all dressed up in the Gion district.  I really wanted to see a real Geisha or Maika, but we didn't see any, we did see the schools.

The view from our hotel room.

 On Sunday before our train left in the early afternoon we went to Fushimi-Inari Taisha Shrine.  It is know for the thousands and thousands of Torii gates that you can walk through.

Main gate

Entrance

These are extra large Torii gates

This shrine's animal is the fox and people draw faces on their prayer wood.

You can buy these smaller Torii gates and write your prayer on them  and leave them at your desired shrine.

The smaller Torii gates you can walk through.

A few of the many, many shrines!

Remember all those Torii gates people bought and placed?!  For the smallest size ones it is a mere $1,750, and the largest ones...just $13,020.  Expensive prayer.

And here were Torii gates people had bought!!

And these are the largest ones, I think, just waiting to be bought!!!!

These shrines and the Torii gates you walk through were on this huge mountain that takes about an hour to walk the whole thing.  It smelled like camping was the perfect Sunday hike.

We  may have gotten these fish icecream shells that they fill with custard, fruit, corn flakes, and chocolate.  Delicious!

We saw Mt. Fuji on the train ride home!

Overall it was a fabulous FABULOUS trip!  Definitely probably one of the coolest places I have ever seen and probably on Earth!