174. little finds, kyoto

28th September 2014, Sunday

Both little sis and I didn't have any thing planned out for Sunday, we were really on the fence with going to Miyajima or Lake Biwa, which is the largest lake in Japan, but Miyajima was too far and Lake Biwa was too difficult to get to, so we decided to head back to Kyoto.

We didn't know what to do in Kyoto but little sis and I settled for going to Arashiyama. I was there in June and liked it a lot and thought it would be good to go anyways since there's a river. We arrived at Arashiyama before 11am, and walked straight to Togetsukyo Bridge. We didn't want to strain ourselves out anymore since the whole week was pretty crazy.

Little sis and I decided to sit near the riverbanks when she came up with a crazy (actually it isn't that crazy, I just thought it was) idea. She spotted people rowing boats through the river and told me she wanted to do it as well. I was really against it because I swore to her that we would get stuck in the middle of the river and die. And I know too well that her body is aching from all the headbanging because of the concert, so why torture herself?

But she insisted and told me she would do all the rowing, I could just sit there like a princess and she wouldn't care. I told her we should just take a "cruise" and let people row us, she agreed if it wasn't overly priced. Well, turned out that it was way over priced, 3500 yen for a boat ride down the river, so we checked how much it was to rent a boat and it was only 1400 yen. So, I caved in and let her have her fun.

look at how happy she is, it disgusts me.

I was right, once we got onto the boat, she had no idea what she was doing and we were stuck at the same spot for 10 minutes until someone came to teach her how to steer. -___- After that, she got better at it but we moved really slowly. It turned out to be pretty fun and I took videos of us too, which now when you watch them back are pretty hilarious because in the videos, you'll hear me directing her and we'll be going the wrong way, haha. Since we only rented the boat for an hour, we didn't go too far.

She steered far enough to see a small little stand by the river where people were selling food on their boat, we decided to go there by foot because that one hour was almost up. We put the boat back, and walked to the little stand we saw by the river. 

The stand was really cute and reminded me of the kind that I'll watch in anime but they were mostly by the beach. We ordered a lot of food since it was pretty cheap. 2 alcoholic drinks, oden, grilled squid, udon and dango. It was pretty relaxing to be by the river too since it was quiet. There were several ducks swimming by too.

There were several families having lunch or just dango too. We were just watching people rowing boats and would steer their boat to the stand just to get dango, which I thought was really cute. Mostly couples are on the boats though. Soon, our food was being served and I was really glad they served it slowly, one by one because we wanted to take our time and try everything.

We spent over an hour there, just sitting, talking, people or duck watching. Little sis complained that her arms were aching because of the steering, I was all " I told you so!" We finally left at about 1. While she was paying the bill, I noticed that the way they kept their drinks was pretty cool.

We were thinking of what to do next, she wasn't interested in looking at more temples, so we just decided to roam freely. We just continued where the path took us. The path led us nearer to the river and a temple on top of the mountain. We stopped and took a couple of photos by the river, it wasn't as pretty as Kamikochi obviously but it was still pretty.

It was pretty difficult to get near the river because the banks of it consisted of really large, jagged rocks and I wasn't wearing the right shoes again. Somehow, we managed and was just looking into the water and there were some tiny fishes.

After that, we continued with the path and it led us up the mountain. I almost died climbing up. It was really tiring, so much for straining myself. It took about half an hour to get to the top but the view was pretty worth it. The monks at the temple gave us a pair binoculars to locate Kiyomizu-dera. I was really amazed that you could actually see it from there. They were also serving some tea and biscuits. While little sis was busy eating, I was playing with two Akita (Hachiko breed) puppies, they were so cute.

After resting for a while, we made our way down the mountain. We still didn't know what to do so I took little sis to the bamboo forest. We didn't spend too much time there either because it was crowded, we came out of it pretty quickly and got ice-cream. It was the same one I had the last time I was there. We were again discussing on what's left to do in Kyoto and we couldn't come up with anything, and since it was already about 3 in the afternoon, we thought of what we wanted for dinner.

Both of us agreed to have Hitsumabushi again, and since it was on the way back to Tokyo, it would be easy. So, we left Arashiyama for Kyoto Station and got on the train to Nagoya. Luckily we decided to get to the restaurant early because this time, the line was even longer than the other day. Probably because it was a Sunday. 

We finally got into the restaurant after an hour, we didn't order the omelette this time but a bigger Hitsumabushi set. We were really happy. After dinner, we went back to Nagoya Station and board the last train back to Tokyo.

And that marks the end of another crazy adventure with my little sis.