My Kids are Troopers

It's 10:00 on Friday night here.  We just got home from dinner about 30 min ago.  The girls are sleeping and Brian and I have our feet up planning our attack for tomorrow.  

It was rainy this morning when we set off.  Our journey  started at Fushimi Inari-Taisha. What a breathtaking place. There are 10,000 torii (gates) and 12,000 steps to one of the most famous shrines in Japan. The rain slowed and left behind a really beautiful mist that filled the forest. I was so excited to take photos. We climbed happily for a while. Took a few breaks and stopped for a cold juice on the way up. About half way up, Mackenzie was done. She would go no further. She was in tears and completely over it.  I know Brian was disappointed because he wanted to go to the summit. He said he thought about continuing on but decided to turn back with us. I have to admit, I am happy she can made it as far as she did. By this time in the trip, we have clocked many miles of walking and the kids are tired.  

After we made our way down, we hit up a couple food vendors for a snack. I had these amazing dumplings grilled and painted with an amazing miso glaze. I could have eaten many more skewers of them. Once the kids’ sugar levels were back up, we headed over to Tofukuji temple. Mack was not happy to know that we were temple bound after surviving the horrific stairs we forced her to climb at our previous stop. Her dad saved the day when he whipped out the giant lolly she bought at Universal and that seemed to help her focus on something else for a little while.The views here were breathtaking once again and the not so great weather was a gift for today.  It made the grounds so beautiful.

I can't even imagine how many miles we walked today.  Our evening was capped off with a Godsill-style search for dinner. We meandered through the incredibly adorable streets of Kyoto.  I am officially in love with Kyoto.  There is a charm here that I haven't experienced before.  

Starbucks!

 

Our walk about was fun and relaxing for a long time.  And then starving tiredness set in. We walked down Shijo street heading for Nishiki market in hopes of finding some food.  What we didn't do before we left is read the books to find out that they closed at 6.  We walked about and hour and a half to find everything closed.  Disappointment isn't fun for anyone.  For tired and starving kids, its the worst.  We had a hard time finding a place that the kids would eat at.  We are trying to find food they will eat that has at least one meatless option too.  That is nearly impossible.  We ended up in a huge shopping area with several food choices.  Nothing they would eat.  Finally at 8:50, we sat down with a tray of bakery items we would eat for dinner.  Hot dogs rolled in buns, sweet potato danish, apple pie, cheese rolls, and all at 40% off because they needed to sell them.  Everyone happily ate.  After, we treated ourselves to a taxi ride home.  The BEST 450 Yen ever spent. 

Tomorrow.  Bamboo forests and monkeys. In other words, walking and looking for food our kids will eat.  Oyasumi!