After all the walking on our first day in Kyoto, we had a bit of a slower start on day two. The planned highlight of the day was a family kaiseki lunch. Kaiseki is a traditional Japanese multi-course meal, featuring seasonal ingredients and an elaborate presentation. As a major center for Japanese traditions, Kyoto is a great place to experience a kaiseki meal. These meals can be very expensive, and a lot of kaiseki restaurants don’t allow children. Fortunately, our AirBnB host was able to make a reservation for us, and we managed the cost by scheduling our family kaiseki experience for lunch, which is a less expensive option than dinner.

Exploring Kyoto in the Rain

Even with a bit of a slow start, we had some time before lunch to explore the area close to our AirBnB, a short distance northwest of Kyoto Station. Although it was raining intermittently, we managed to see some lesser-known, and even quirky sights. The first one (which we actually stumbled across by accident), was the original Nintendo building. This was very exciting for video game enthusiast Lachlan.

Our next stop was a place I had read about in the wonderful Atlas Obscura, a great resource for finding things to see that are not your average tourist attraction. Mimizuka, or “Mound of Ears” is a burial mound for noses and ears collected by Japanese soldiers as war trophies in the 16th century.

Next to Mimizuka there is a children’s playground, featuring a happy blue hippo.

Toyokuni-Jinja Shrine

Our next stop was a more traditional tourist site, the Toyokuni-Jinja Shrine. This place doesn’t get as many visitors as the more popular temples and shrines, but is well worth a visit.

A special feature of this shrine is the treasure house, where you can see artifacts from the shrine’s history.

Another interesting feature right next to the Toyokuni-Jinja Shrine is a massive bell. It weighs in at more than eighty tonnes. Unfortunately, the giant Buddha that was planned to be located with the bell was never built. The bell sits in a belfry that is all that remains of Hoko-ji temple. The rest of the temple was destroyed by an earthquake in 1596.

Family Kaiseki Lunch

After our morning sightseeing, we were ready for lunch. We made our way to Harise, a restaurant that has been in business for more than 350 years. Even for a city as steeped in history as Kyoto, this is an impressive number. The staff greeted us warmly, showed us where to put our shoes then led us to our private room. The room featured a lovely view to a small garden.

Our waitress presented us with the customary hot towels and we settled in for our family kaiseki experience.

Over the next couple of hours, our waitress served a series of courses, each beautifully presented. The kids didn’t like the small fish that are meant to be eaten heads and all. However, generally the food was fresh and flavorful. We even had two dessert courses, although in the Japanese style these were a lot less sweet than typical western desserts.

After finishing our meal with a matcha green tea, we all agreed that we were glad we had chosen lunch time for our family kaiseki experience, because we definitely didn’t need the extra courses (with accompanying extra expense) that would have been served if we were there for dinner.

Fushimi Inari Shrine

After our major lunch event we headed back to our AirBnB apartment to recover. While the kids were done with sightseeing for the day, the grown-ups decided to check out one of Kyoto’s most iconic sites, the Fushimi Inari Shrine. After taking a train a few stops south from Kyoto Station we entered the shrine through the massive entrance gate.

A light rain enhanced the look of the moss-covered stone lanterns and shrine guardian statues.

The main reason for visiting Fushimi Inari is to see the walkways lined with bright red torii gates. Business owners donate these gates to the shrine in thanks for (or in hope of) good fortune. In parts of the trail leading up the mountain behind the entrance gates the torii gates are so close together they almost form a tunnel.

As well as the torii gates, it’s interesting to see all of the small sub-shrines that you see along the way as the path climbs the mountain.

These are mostly Shinto shrines, but some Buddhist statues and altars are also sprinkled amongst them.

We were there too late in the day to walk all the way to the top of the mountain behind the shrine, but we did manage to get a good workout following our big lunch. We made our way back to the train to head back to Kyoto Station as light was fading.

Wrapping Up the Day

A treat from Mr Donut was our reward for our Fushimi Inari hiking efforts, and the futuristic Kyoto Station building was an interesting contrast to the historic sights and experiences of the day.