We woke up to utterly miserable weather – 40’s and raining with 90% rain all day. We put on our ponchos we had bought at Disney and headed to Kyoto Station. It was miserable. We bought Ryan an umbrella right away. Everyone was using umbrellas and seemed completely dry but we were soaked! No one else was using ponchos except other tourists. We started our soggy day at the Bamboo Forest.

It was pretty cool but it was really short, maybe 1/4 mile long. We got stopped for a while because a film crew was filming a car driving through the forest. We just kept walking and made our way to the river and Togetsu Bridge.

We crossed the bridge and saw the entrance to the Monkey Park. It was cool and all but I was wet, cold and cranky! I broke down and bought an umbrella too and it definitely helped. We started making our way to Kinkakuju (the Golden Pavilion). We walked by the Kimono Forest and the Arashiyama Foot Onsen.

I had really wanted to use that onsen but my feet were already soaked from rain (and my ankles were stained blue from my jeggings) so I didn’t see the point. I was a little disappointed with Kinkakuju. It had been hyped up so much but basically you just got shuffled around the outside of the building (yes, it was cool to see that much gold) and then through a market area. It was here that I realized the rain cover on my backpack wasn’t actually keeping anything dry. My goshuincho stamp book was a wreck and my camera was soaked. All adding to a stellar mood.

On the way back to the train station, we stopped at a shrine we had spotted on our way to Kinkakuju. We didn’t know anything about it but it turns out that it’s called Hirano Shrine and they have held a cherry blossom festival here every year since 985. There are 400 cherry trees on the grounds (50 different species) and we just happened to catch the festival! We saw the ceremony happening and stood in the back to watch then they were lining up for some sort of processional so we headed out to get lunch.

We found a place where you ordered on a touchscreen machine and selected Carbonara udon. Oh.My.Goodness was that yummy!

We continued on with our walk to the train station and stumbled upon the processional from Hirano Shrine. How cool was it that we got to see something that happens once a year for the past 1,034 years! I’m really glad we got to see it, too, because it turned around our day. We were still wet and miserable but less cranky.

We got back to our hotel to rest and dry off. I was literally drying my pants and sweater with the blowdryer in our room. We ventured back out and went to Kiyomizudera. The main temple is currently being renovated but everything was still pretty amazing.

Ryan successfully walked between the two love stones. We walked through Higashiyama to get to Yasaka Shrine. I found a yummy crepe and we bought a few souvenir. Most things were already closed though, at around 5:30pm.

Yasaka Shrine is open 24 hours so we could walk the grounds and enjoy the cherry blossoms but the goshuin counter had closed at 4pm.

From here we just wondered the streets of Gion. I saw at least one Geisha. We found Gion Corner and could have gotten standing-room only seats for the 7pm show but we decided not to. We also found Kichikichi restaurant, famous for omurice, but they were closed for a holiday/vacation.

It was really pretty to be out at night in the rain though. We saw a few different sets of photographers either with wedding couples or people in kimonos. It would be so amazing to photograph someone here!

For dinner I was determined to try Japanese pancakes. We ended up at Horshino Coffee at Kyoto Station for some pancakes and a pork cutlet sandwich. So yummy!