It was frigid this morning, and either raining, sleeting, or snowing, depending on which direction we looked. We'd gotten back late last night, so were in no rush to go out in the cold precipitation anyway.
Sarah and Michael went out and explored in the rain, while we had a restorative morning of sleep followed by breakfast at 9 AM.
I decided to finally take a photo of the toilet in our hotel room, for obvious reasons. We might need to get one of these.
The forecast suggested the rain would end around 11 AM or so, so I went up to the roof deck to see what the situation was. There was a short-lived, small patch of sun amidst a swirling sky, and then it started raining again.
We met up with Michael and Sarah when they got back from their wet walk and decided on a plan for the afternoon, when the weather finally improved.
None of us had had second breakfast, so we identified a lunch venue near the top of the Philosopher's Path and took a taxi from the hotel to the general vicinity.
Lunch was several variations on Japanese curry; Michael and I had ours with tonkatsu.
After lunch, we decided to see the Ginkakuji temple just up the hill from the start of the walking path.
The grounds inside the temple were essentially one giant garden, which was a lovely surprise.
This odd feature is apparently the "moon-viewing platform". I'm still processing this fact:
"The gardeners at the Silver Pavilion rebuild the white sand mountain once or twice a month, or more if there’s damage from rain or wind."
As has often been the case, there was a prescribed path around the garden.
Also quite common: a large number of stairs leading up to a viewing area.
On the way out of the garden, we stopped at the gift shop. I suspect some people just wanted to warm up, and weren't actually interested in shopping.
Leaving the temple, we returned to the start of the Path of Philosophy and went for a tranquil stroll along a canal.
There were many small shops, restaurants, and cafes along the path. Some of them seemed targeted to a niche market.
There were also a few smaller temples accessible from the path, which we ignored entirely. According to this top Google result, there are "over 1600 Temples and 400 Shrines in and around Kyoto", so it's important to prioritize.
It was still only a handful of degrees above freezing (most of the day), but at least it had stopped raining.
We randomly encountered a little old man making tiny bamboo boats, which are dropped from a bridge into the canal as a test of one's luck. He was insistent that we drop some boats, pantomiming the correct technique for us.
We were all successful in our boat-launching attempts, bringing great luck to each of us.
The man was then walking a few dozen yards down the path and fishing the boats out of the canal with something resembling a pool skimmer.
The path ended near another temple, which we also did not inspect too carefully. I believe it was Eikan-dō, which is an enormous complex of buildings that would have taken several hours to explore. Some quick research suggested it was a good one to visit in the fall, so we didn't feel too bad about passing it by.
At this point, we were really just on our way to the subway station closest to the bottom of the walking path, but we passed through the edge of (what I think was) Nanzen-Ji temple, stopping to admire the enormous main gate.
Some people were having a costumed photoshoot, but other than that it was calm and empty.
We had decided to go to an evening event at Nijō Castle, but that wasn't until 6 PM at the earliest, so we had a few hours to spare in the afternoon.
Between where we were and Nijō, we returned to the Teramachi shopping arcade and decided to investigate the "otter cafe" that we had passed the other day.
Sabrina was going to find something else to do for an hour, but the rest of us went up to the second floor for a look. It was not at all what we were expecting, and also had a strong, unpleasant odor as soon as we walked in. On top of that, it was currently full and we wouldn't have been able to go in for at least 20 minutes.
All of which is to say: we bailed on the otter cafe. The fact that it's tagged as a zoo on Google Maps makes more sense, now; it didn't resemble a cafe in any sense of the word. (In contrast, there are some other animal cafes in Kyoto, many of which appear to actually be cafes, I think?)
Instead, we walked a few blocks away from Teramachi and found a high-end cafe attached to a bookstore in a fancy shopping center. Again, we all needed to warm up, but as a bonus they also had various cakes and beverages.
After our late-afternoon snack, we returned to the subway for a short trip over to Nijō. Here is a fairly typical example of the sort of advertisement that's in the subway cars, except this one hangs from the ceiling. Michael took the effort to translate it a few days ago; apparently it's a reminder that the Kyoto city council is hosting public meetings about the budget for FY2025.
The sun was just beginning to set as we got to Nijō, and we went to wait in line to get tickets for the special night-event.
It wasn't quite dark enough to see the light-show aspect of the event, as we entered just after 6 o'clock. A sign on the way in suggested that the best time for viewing was in an hour.
This cherry-blossom-themed light show turned out to include some food vendors, and also some shopping later on. We hadn't done that much research; I think we found out about it from a flyer, somewhere?
It was rapidly getting colder as the sun was going down, so I was happy to have a bit of piping-hot food.
As we sauntered through the almost-but-not-quite-blooming cherry blossoms, an interactive light-and-sound show unfolded around us. It was something about summoning a dragon.
We're fairly sure one of the sponsors of the event was Disney, because one of the videos being projected on the wall of a building was an ad for the new Snow White movie (in Japanese) that comes out tomorrow. It was a bit confusing.
The real start of the show was the work presented on the entire length of this wall, just inside the inner moat.
It was sort of a story about cherry blossoms, and also there were dragons.
As it got darker, the colors became more vivid. This was about 12 minutes before 7 PM.
Even without the Naked-added light shows, the castle would have been stunning to see lit up at night, especially from the inside. Normally it closes at 5 o'clock, though, so I suppose this isn't a thing that really happens outside of this month-long event.
As we got to the end of the route, there were booths offering cocktails and snacks, but it was already getting crowded and also it was barely above freezing. None of us were really dressed for extended time outdoors below 40°F, so we didn't linger very long.
On the way out, we wrapped around a bit to the start, to see this gate now that it was properly dark out. Here, too, was another elaborate multimedia show.
We'd known there was going to be some sort of food at the event, and thought there was a vague possibility that it might serve as dinner, but it hadn't really worked out that way. On the way out of Nijō, we stopped at their gift shop to warm up and figure out where to get something to eat.
We took the subway back to Teramachi, where there were plenty of restaurants, and stood in line outside of a small yakitori restaurant that was well-reviewed.
As we had learned from Sam, last night, the Japanese people don't shy away from organ meats. We ordered multiple skewers of various things, but didn't try anything too exotic.
The entire place had seats for maybe 12 or 13 customers, and all of the food was cooked on this small, charcoal grill.
There was a booth in the back/right corner (that had a removable divider in the middle, to split it into two tables of two). The entire place was about the size of a one-car garage, essentially.
It was just after 9 PM by the time we got out of dinner, so we walked across the river to a train station on the Keihan line and rode a few stops south to get back to the hotel.
We regrouped in the lounge area to figure out plans for tomorrow, but I'm not sure we came up with anything concrete. The real wildcard is that it will probably still be below 40°F again, in the morning.
Eventually, we'll check out of the hotel and leave Kyoto, headed back to the Tokyo area for the rest of our trip.
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