Kyoto: Peace, Serenity & a Near Cliffside Incident
Peace. Serenity. Beauty.
Except for the part where my son almost fell off a cliff and took wrong turn…into someone’s house, but besides that…peace, serenity, beauty…
The Togetsukyo Bridge, winding waterways, and tiny storefronts packed with every Japanese collectible I never knew I needed pulled me into a trance the moment we arrived.
Our driver pulled up to the enchanting Suiran hotel, right on the water, with built-in waterfalls, an onsen, and kimonos laid out for all of us on our beds, sized perfectly for our crew.
The hotel manager greeted us in an immaculately designed lounge and asked about our hopes for the next three days — restaurants, tours, breakfasts, all of it. Somehow, she made every single thing happen.
That night she booked a car and a reservation at a four-table, generationally-owned sushi spot that only locals knew about. We walked in and received the glances we knew we’d get, but hadn’t in Tokyo.
We opened with “Sumimasen” before saying our names for the reservation and could tell that it was appreciated. Very little English was spoken in this particular restaurant, and it made it even better.
The sushi chef was in an open kitchen with his son, and he lifted a globe asking us where we’re from. My husband walked up and pointed to California and we got smiles and absolute approval from both. And then the whole restaurant (eight other patrons) looked over with smiles and nods.
We passed the initial tourist test. And it felt good.
It was one of those meals that slows the entire table down. I stuck with sashimi while my brave meat-eating family tried literally everything on the menu. It was sublime. When we were leaving with “arigato gozaimasu”, we said goodbye to everyone in the restaurant - including the kitchen staff - and we all knew it was a meal we’ll always remember.
And that was just night one.
The next morning, we woke up early to a beautiful breakfast in the hotel restaurant, everything tailored to the breakfast wishes we'd casually mentioned the day before, on floral painted black dishes that belonged in a museum.
We knew the bamboo forest required an early arrival, so we walked over before the crowds and it was worth the alarm clock. We wandered through giant green bamboo that made us feel very small in the best possible way. It was a forest walk of all forest walks, and it was all ours, until it wasn’t. They didn’t exaggerate about the crowds, but we were already on our way out, so it didn’t matter.
Beneath the bamboo
We wandered along the quiet temple paths nearby, marveling at the history and architecture, removing our shoes and exploring some deeper. It became a meditative walk, until an elderly lady ran down the front stairs of a temple with a broom, screaming “My house!” to our son, who accidentally added her house to our temple tour.
In his defense, it looked exactly like the temples we were touring. One ding on our tourist grade. And to the lady whose house it was, I’m so sorry for the mix-up!
The walk up to the Monkey Park was no joke. My glutes were not expecting such a workout. I veered to the side of the path for a quick stretch, and looked up to find my son’s hood on the sweatshirt he was wearing, in the hands of a guardian angel who grabbed him while he was trying to grab a full cliffside view.
She walked off as if it was nothing, while this moment sucked all of the oxygen out of me for a month. “Arigato gozaimasu” were the only words I could manage to get out, as I grabbed onto my son for dear life as we trekked the rest of the way up.
It was the longest walk of my life (my son almost falling off a cliff did not help). But then we saw monkeys! “Don’t look them in the eye.” That was the only instruction I got and I’m not typically a rule follower but this one scared the sh*t out of me.
“What happens if you do?”
“You don’t want to find out.”
I think I ran away after snapping this photo.
Okay, so no eye contact. We went into the monkey feeding house where you buy food and hand it to the monkeys through, well, monkey bars. We started chatting with two American kids and their mom, only to realize halfway through the conversation that this was Jimmy Kimmel’s family. Apparently the Kyoto Monkey Park was the place to be.
We ate our way through Nishiki Market, stopping at nearly every storefront to savor the endless flavors that lingered through the air. My family ate every piece of meat, while my personal favorite was discovering Tanghulu: fruit coated in a crackly sugar shell that totally convinced me candy was a perfectly acceptable meal.
Eating our way through the one-and-only Nishiki Market
We wandered through Kyoto's shrines and temples, including Yasaka Shrine, where cherry blossoms framed vermilion gates and visitors in colorful kimonos looked as though they had stepped out of another century.
Exquisite real-life moment at Yasaka Shrine
One detour from my narrative:
Buy a fan.
Or five.
You won't regret it.
The grounds of Kyoto Imperial Palace took my breath away (not hyperbole). Ancient architecture, graceful bridges, towering trees, and a level of peace I usually spend an entire meditation trying to achieve.
It was quiet as we journeyed along, smiling to ourselves, unable to believe we were really there.
It’s mind-blowing that despite a major cliffside scare, mistaking a private residence for a tourist attraction, and a few other stories too long for this particular narrative, the feeling I carried home from Kyoto was still one of complete peace.
