Kyoto, day 1

Our last morning in Nagoya we took the kids out to a park so that Alex and Amy could plan their exit strategy, what they needed to do to pack up and move on to Kyoto. The kids had a great time playing Pokemon in the Pokemon castle until there was a collision that resulted in major goose eggs.

This is Juniper's mean pokemon-catcher face.

We brought the kids home with lumps on their heads, and pee on Juniper's skirt a la Japanese toilet mishap. There was only a ratio of 4 adults to 2 kids. After changing Juniper we headed out again to grab lunch at a Japanese buffet, with Alex leading the way as we walked through Nagoya. Our meal was delicious! When we finished our multiple courses Michael, Amanda, Jeremy and I headed to the train station to go to Kyoto. We knew there was a lot to see in that city and wanted to get started.
We split a cab over to our hotel--Toyoko Inn. We were pleased with our clean, but small rooms, and especially the crisply pressed nightshirts they provided for us.
We left the hotel and walked down to the Gion district, which is just beautiful.
We first visited a shrine, which was perfect to see as the sun was setting because of all the lanterns.


Jeremy and Amanda practiced the washing ritual.

We enjoyed walking through this amazing area. There were temples and shrines on every block.

As we headed back to downtown and crossed the river, we found this great little pedestrian street lined with fancy restaurants with stylish facades.


We walked through the streets in search of a tasty dessert and finally came across a crepe stand, like our favorite Japanese crepe shop, Genki, in San Francisco. We didn't really get dinner because we had eaten so much at lunch we weren't too hungry. We did go to a grocery store for a few snack items to eat while we hung out back at the hotel. We couldn't wait to get back to those crisp nightshirts. We played cards in matching nightshirts in Michael's and Amanda's room. Here is us with our best game faces on.

I think we were almost as stylish as these guys.

In case you are wondering, yes, we do subscribe to "Men's Egg" now. Jeremy insisted. At the shop where Men's Egg was sold, we also saw one of our favorite T-shirts, which we failed to photograph. At the top it read "DECISIVE," followed by a picture of a woman's torso. Then it read, "She looks like an able woman." Then at the bottom "I did it out of curiosity."