Tuesday Travels - Kyoto Part Two

After Nyan Nyan Ji, we headed over to Fushimi Inari.  It is a shrine known for the red torii gates.

Street approaching the shrine...there are many shops and restaurants surrounding shrines and temples.

Fushimi Inari is a large shrine complex with many buildings

Vermillion Red is the color of choice because it wards off evil spirits

Map of the complex...

It is guarded by Fox

I love all the different types of lanterns you can find...

Another structure.  The roof is wood and needs to be replaces quite often

This shrine is dedicated to the Shinto god of Rice

This shrine has ancient origins, predating the capital's move to Kyoto in 794

The fox are the messengers...

Thousands of Torii gates form a walkway up the mountain.  The large ones were donated by companies, and the smaller ones by families.

Getting dark and the shrines takes on an eerie feel...

Main building...

Seeing the full moon through the gate

We left Fushimi and headed to a Starbucks.  On the way, we found a fun cat store...

This is the starbucks.  It was built inside a 100 year old house.  The area is near the famous temple called Kiyomizu-dera.

Inside is all the modern equipment needed...place your order here and pick it up down the hall

Tatami mats line many of the sitting rooms, so you much remove your shoes.

Kyoto Tower at night.

A couple of days later we went back to Kyoto for a special Starbucks drink.  It is only a 16 minute train ride from Osaka.  Here though, is a vending machine.  The top two shelves with the red border are hot drinks..the rest are cold.  So clever!

There was a special drink for the 20th anniversary of Starbucks in Kyoto.  The drink was available for one week, and only at certain stores. 

Thankfully, the store at Kyoto Station had it!

We decided to go up in the Kyoto Tower and see the city...it did not disappoint

Here you can see the Shinkansen coming into town...

I have a feeling if you looked at an aerial view of this area, that Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe are probably all one really large city!

Mancat Monday

The boys have had a nice week, and seem to be getting along with Lenny better.  I think the extra attention and playtime is helping, along with the essential oils.

Rusty is taking after brother Oliver in being dramatic!  This toy was flipped over and he acted like he had never seen it before...these boys are so crazy!

We got a new shipment of Feliway in from Chewy and everyone enjoyed the craft paper...Harrison has taken his favorite toy to the paper to play

Flynn loves playing with a shoe string on this scratcher, and also chasing it around the den.  He is super speedy and can catch it often!  Then he will take you for a walk to the kitchen before he drops it.

Oliver being a toy hog...two toys for him today!

Tuesday Travels - Kyoto Part One

My week is off because of the holiday we had on Monday...so I'm still calling this Tuesday Travels!

We left Yokohama and traveled to Osaka, where we would be staying for 5 nights.  We were using Osaka as our base and taking day trips from there.

We passed Mount Fuji on the way...we were lucky to have a clear day to see the top!

A train schedule for track 3.  We were taking the Hikari 475 train.

Shinkansen, or bullet trains are very comfortable.

We went to Kyoto the next day to see the sites.  We were visiting places we had never been to before.

First stop was the Arashiyama Bamboo forest.  It was much smaller than I anticipated, but it was still nice to see.

Very quiet and calm while walking through the trees...

The smells from this small shop drew us in for lunch...

Delicious yakisoba...

At the train station we found fresh roasted sweet potatoes...these are my favorites!

Next, we took a taxi to Nyan Nyan Ji, which is a cat temple themed cat cafe.  Thankfully, our driver knew where it was because it was very far off the beaten path!

There were cats everywhere!

This stuffed cat was about 6 feet tall!

There was one cat walking around but she didn't seem very interested in the people

The "shrine" area...

We had a yummy curry...

There weren't very many things that interested me for purchase, but I guess that is a good thing!

Sign out front with name of cafe and designated parking...

I'll visit the other Kyoto locations next week...stay tuned.

Mancat Monday but on a Tuesday

This has been a good week for the boys.  We are being more regular with the "Safe Space" essential oils and are seeing huge improvements in behavior.

Flynn is the main culprit right now, but we think he truly is wanting to play with Lenny.  He has so much energy and needs an outlet to burn some of it off.  I put him in a harness and we did a short adventure in the back yard.  He wasn't completely confident, but seemed to enjoy it.  He was very tired after his outing!  A tired cat isn't causing trouble!

I picked up some new catnip toys to see how Harrison would do with them.  Oliver loved his!

Rusty and Harrison checking out another one...

Harrison found his and enjoyed bunny kicking and licking it.  Thankfully, he didn't eat the fabric like he does with the banana or carrot shapes.  We may have found a way to have catnip again!

You can see we are seeing much improvement with Lenny.  Here he and George share Aunties lap.  Oliver is on the back of the chair, and you can see Flynn's legs on the right, he is on the ottoman.

Auntie is the pack leader at our house.

That's our update for the week.  Tomorrow the Japan trip continues...