Today was our first full day in Kyoto. We ate breakfast at the apartment, before heading out to meet up with our group for a full-day bike tour, that turned out to be more than we bargained (or paid) for.
We had a 7 in our group: a family of 3 from Sydney, Australia (although really from New Zealand) and a couple from LA (which reinforced to Tsana that living there was an awful idea). Our guide was French, from Burgundy, was lovely, but was very - the only way to say it - French. Let's proceed... The first part of the trip we rode along the river, less busy than the Esplanade, but same idea. It was nice to get a touch of nature since we've been bouncing from city to city, but the wind had other plans! A few mishaps encountered on the trail included Karen (Aussie mom) ramming right into one of those cement bollards (and consequentially, getting a beer for lunch and drove better afterwards), and the LA lady from Poland who had the tags on all of her clothes still, who fell into a bush.
We did get to stand in the middle of the river, and not fall in, which was a challenge. After the river we saw our first temple, Ginkakuji. Apparently the temple down the street, was made with gold, and called the Gold Pavilion. That guy's son didn't want to be shown up by his dad, but at the same time, couldn't show up his dad (Japanese family vibes), so he made the Silver Pavilion, aka Ginkakuji temple. Biggest difference between the two is that the one we visited didn't have any actual silver in it. Why? Great question. Like many things in Japan, this had to do with the moon and how we regularly refer to the moon as silver.
We grabbed food at the supermarket and at this point, we were very hungry, but in true French fashion, he didn't care and probably was OK just not eating at all, so we carried on, with our food in hand, that we couldn't eat. We rode down the Philosopher's Path and stopped at the Nanzenji temple (see two pics below), still hungry. This temple was gorgeous, but as Tsana and the Aussie son (Tash) agree, it was time to go and EAT.
We (FINALLY) ate lunch outside the Otoyo Jinja shrine and then went into the gardens in back of the shrine. Very pretty - lots of lily pads and bonsai trees. There was also a French tour of about 50-75 people in front of us and I have never seen so much French-on-French hate as when our guide was grumbling about that group. Easy, Philipe! Fun fact about the red color: it was used to honor the sunlight since the Kyoto people were so reliant on agriculture and wanted their crops to flourish. Leaving this place, it was about 3:45pm, and the tour was supposed to end at 3:30pm, but Philipe didn't care/notice. We had one more stop.
On our way back to the start we rode through Gion, which is the most famous Geisha district in Kyoto. We weren't able to see any when we went through since the Geisha both live and work in this area and only leave when going to and from the dinner they have appointments to make and people to see.
Finally back to home-base and it was 4:30pm, people. An entire hour late - refer back to the French part. Best part was that Philipe didn't even realize we were that late: "I thought we were at 3, maybe 3:15."
That evening, we tried to go to Nishiki Market, but it was mostly closed, so we wandered and found a (surprisingly) good place to eat (although Tsana did find a hair in her food, as usual).
On the agenda tomorrow: Roketsu dyeing, bamboo forest, and Kobe beef for Dave (lunch time reservations!).