Blogging mom

Our last day in Kyoto started with a serene walk on my own through the quiet streets and up through kiyomizudera temple. I got myself a real coffee and wandered around while the rest of the family was still asleep. At around 8:30 the hoards of school kids started to arrive and the serenity was about to finish. One boy stopped to say hello and ask me where I was from. He then ran off screaming to his friends "I spoke to a foreigner!" Quite hilarious.  

We are now relaxing before dinner after a great day on bikes. The machiya (guesthouse/townhouse) that we are staying in has turned out to be great and just what we needed. The kids have space, we have space and the location is awesome. I was able to find little pancakes and waffles and fruit at the convenience store and had a breakfast prepared for when everyone woke up. Voila! A bit of a taste of home.  Except it was me making it and not Abby which is usually the way things are done in Toronto!

The kids definitely require kid things and breaks in between temples and history lessons.  Fair enough. I think they have a one historical site per day limit. Maybe two if the visits are short. They enjoy them while we are there but then want to explore or play frisbee or read their kindles. It's nice to have the time built into the schedule so we can take our time and not feel we need to see everything at once. 

I'm also finding that I am way more tired than I had expected to be. I wear a Fitbit so I know how many steps I do. At home I can polish off a good long walk on a Saturday morning with Jen and over the course of a day rack up 25k steps. Here I'm between 15-20k a day but feel much more tired. Craig thinks it's all the stimuli and perhaps it's because the pace is slow but I'm pretty much standing most of the day?

With that said I'm off for a nap :)

Day 9: Riding around Kyoto

We decided to rent bikes and tool around Kyoto today.  I found a great place online (Kyoto Cycling Tour Project at www.kctp.net) and the reviews were accurate.  Great service, enthusiasm and knowledge.

We headed off to the Nishiki food market where all the locals get all there food and related items.  We sampled quite a bit!

After that we rode up the main riverside to the north of the city.  After lunch, we meandered over to Ginkakuji - the silver pavillion.  It was a nice contrast to Kinkakuji the other day - way less crowds, more serene and it's very much a showcase of Japanese gardening.

We made our way back to the riverside where it was full speed downhill for a few kilometers.  Renting bikes was a great option today and a nice change from walking around Kyoto.  Tonight is our last night here before we head off to Hiroshima!

Day 8: Osaka day

Today we decided to sleep in and do a day trip a little later to nearby Osaka.  Osaka is the second biggest city in japan and only 30-40 minutes by train from Kyoto.  It has a lot of history  (one time capital) and is very important in terms of its function as a huge shipping port, but the reason I've always liked it is because it's the Montreal of Japan.

Osaka is more laid back, boisterous and lively than its big brother Tokyo.  People are not as reserved, dress down a bit and are much more likely to engage with you or smile back at you with full eye contact - something you dont get as much in Tokyo for sure.

Our first stop was the fantastic Osaka castle.  Wow - the view from below to the top of the castle and the view down when inside the top floor of the castle are fantastic.  We even ran into a couple of real life Samurai!

Next up, we took a couple of short train rides over to the Osaka waterfront where we visited the Osaka Aquarium.  The main attraction here was a whale shark - one of only two places in the world (Atlanta being the other) where you can see whale sharks in captivity.  Whale sharks have always been a bit of a fascination with Beth and I, ever since we attempted to dive with them in Thaliand in 1997.  

The whole place has a great setup, and we really had a relaxing time checking out all of the exhibits.  It was nice to be in an uncrowded tourist attraction - Osaka was definitely slower than Kyoto in terms of the hordes of tourists.

On the way out, we spotted a huge ferris wheel so we jumped on.  Beth quickly regretted joining us and had to "avert here eyes".   The view was fantastic and the girls did a little video on their day.

A couple of us needed a recharge at Starbucks, and a couple of us needed a venti skim chai!

After a brief rest, we headed out to Minami (South) Osaka.  This has always been my favourite nightlife spot in Japan.  The miles of covered roads, retail and restaurants that spill into the streets, crazy architecture and a backdrop with a canal crossed by numerous foot bridges is a great base for a party.   Inject a few hundred thousand people and you have Minami Osaka.  The girls were pretty happy that we stuck around and got to see this.   They were even out late enough to see people standing up sleeping in the train on the way home - something we'd been telling them about for days.

7 trains, 2 buses and 1 taxi later, I'm sure they'll be sleeping well tonight!

VLOG: Osaka nightlife

VLOG: Osaka kids

Maiko

Geisha time

Today daddy toke me to a place to dress up as geishas (people that were kumonos and have big hair and white faces). At first we thought that we had to walk around town wearing the costumes,because that is what real geishas do. 

When we (Abby and I )got into the room to get dressed up and were makup and wigs, the lady told us to take of our clothes and just keep our underwear on, but luckily there were coverups to put over our selfs. After we were done changing we got into this room to get our makup done. 

First they put a towel around us then put our hair back, and then covered our intire faces with white makup and pink powder blush. After they put pink and black eye liner on our eyes and  also put black maskera on our eye lashes. 

After that was all done they put a huge ichy wig on us that had jewels on it. Then they put the kumonos on, I could not breath at all my waist was covered in so many different layers of that they would usually were. 

After the kumonos was put on we had to photo shoot is all in the kumonos and makup. The guy taking the photo made us put on these wooden shoes, I almost fell of them because the shoes had no support at the very front of them. 

After the photo shoot we had to take all of the makup and clothes of.

After that was all done we left the place and paid and then got some treats ( I got a popcical and Abby got a doughnut) mmm..... Doughnuts...homer would he so proud. When we got back to the house where we were staying, we all went on our iPads and started to type about the adventures of today.