Day 10 Kyoto

 What a fabulous day. Started the day with a walking food tour of the Fushimi district of Kyoto. Our guide took us to 10 different specialty stores, most of which have been operating for over 100 years. Everything we tried was delicious and each vendor was impressed that we ate everything they served us! Sushi, sashimi, fresh water eel, tea, tea and more tea, shavings of dried fish, sweets and more. Oishi! (Delicious!) With our bellies full of enough food to get us through until dinner, we set out for a fun filled afternoon of sight seeing. First stop the famous Inari shrine with over 1000 Tori gates creating a tunnel that winds its way up a hill from a large shrine at the bottom to the top of a hill overlooking Kyoto. So many people visit this place but we noticed the crowd thinned out the higher we climbed. It was quite a hot and humid day so we worked off some of the food tour. Along the way through the tunnel of tori gates there are hundreds of mini shrines. Incredible. And then there would be a tea shop and a vending machine. Japan is amazing.  We still had some energy left so we caught trains to get to the bamboo forest. It was coming on to dusk so it was a beautiful time of day to walk through the great bamboo. It was also a very pretty part of the city with beautiful views of the mountains. Also viewed a very old bridge and by this time we were all beginning to fade like the light so back to base for dinner.