May 25th in words

We're sitting on the shinkansen headed for Tokyo. Sigh. That means  we only have one day left. So sad. I can't believe it's over already.
Today's details: Despite having sent luggage ahead we still felt that it would be nice to stash a bag in a locker at the train station so first stop was the station. On the way we passed a french bakery of all things and picked up some delicious pastries and coffee. Next stop was the Fushimi Inari Shrine. The shrine is famous for its torii gates. There isn't much in the way of english signage, add our aversion to crowds and we soon found ourselves walking through a beautiful bamboo forest instead of up the stairs through the torii gates. After a good hour of meandering through the forest hoping to find the view at the top we finally conceded failure and opted to follow signs that looked like they would take us back down. And wouldn't you know it we found the top! No view, but it was the shrine at the top of the mountain. It kind of felt like we took the back door to get there. This time we followed the gates down and were actually very happy that we had taken the other route up because we hardly saw anyone, the walk through the forest was very nice and it definitely wasn't as steep a climb. Part way down we found the view point, right where they said it would be. We decided to reward our hard work with lunch with a view. It was hard to leave but there was more sight seeing to be done so we eventually continued on our way down. We found the other train station and made our way to the Gion district. There we followed a walking tour that took us through parks, temples and shrines, down "the most beautiful street in Kyoto" (according to Lonely Planet) and through streets lined with shops. It was crazy busy and a lot of people were dressed in traditional Japanese clothing. Great for people watching for sure. We managed to navigate our way back to the train station (we finally have it figured out and it's time to leave), bought some bento boxes for on the train and here we are sitting on the train bound for Tokyo.