Kansai Weekend Tour Day Two

Day Two saw us heading into Kyoto from our Kameoka ryokan. The way we got there was the fun part. We farewelled the ryokan staff (all of whom spoke great English) and headed down to the riverside. There the group boarded 2 fiberglass boats that took us down a huge rocky mountain chasm through a mixture of calm waters and white-water rapids. It took us about an hour and a half, and we had 3 men on board to guide the boat. One old man rowed and another 2 helped guide the boat with long bamboo poles. It was exhilarating to clutch each other tightly on the boat and group scream as our boat descended what seemed to be vertically down a rapid, hearing the bottom of the boat thud against the sharp rocks. Of course it was in reality probably not quite a sheer drop. White-water boating is a bit like skiing though, a gentle slope is all it takes. A very bonding experience. Our tour guide told us that Japanese people normally take the ride in almost-silence!
There was a photographer stuck high up on a rock taking photos to sell back to us, now thats a boring job. We also had not one but 2 boats come up alongside us and tie their boat to ours, hoping to sell the hot food they were cooking on board their boat!
We arrived in a touristy little spot called Arashiyama. I bought some gorgeous fans. The area is famous for croquettes, or ko-ro-ke as the Japanese call them, I had fresh hot potato and pork croquettes for lunch, followed by ice-cream. There is a shop there that claims to have sold the very first soft-cream (snow freeze) ice-cream in Japan. I personally went for their range of homemade funky flavours, including tofu, cherry mochi, sakura (cherry-blossom) etc. I chose kinako flavour, kinako is sweetened ground bean, I absolutely love the stuff, and that ice-cream will be forever memorable. All in all a very nutritious lunch! (Am currently struggling against a daily An (sweet bean paste) Mochi (ground rice paste balls) dipped in Kinako addication. I hate to think what will happen when I leave Japan.)
We split off from each other at Arashiyama to check out the various temples, shrines and even a monkey park. It was lovely to wander around on my own. I also got some unique to Kyoto omiyage called yatsuhasi, yes people, even more sweet bean!
That evening we headed to Kyoto to get sorted at our ryokan (a grotty city one in comparison to the fantastic country retreat of Kameoka) and went out for dinner. Now most Western tourists are looking to try the local cuisine. Not JETs. For many of us living in rural locations the bottom line was, it has to be Western style food. We headed off with our tour leader to a local Mexican joint she knew. This is where it gets interesting. Our group leader was a CIR from Arizona, near the border of Mexico. She grew up speaking only Spanish til she was 7 years old. She then learned English at school, came to Japan and learned Japanese. One of the Japanese locals comented to me that her Japanese was so good you wouldn't pick she was a gaijin over the phone. So we are in this Mexican restaurant in Kyoto, she orders the food in Spanish because the chef lived in Mexico for a decade. Truly one of those wow moments. The food there was amazing, we ordered everything on the menu to share and chatted the night away over pina coladas. I think the restaurant was called La Luna and my goal is to go back there. That place had an amazing atmosphere, dark and edgy with Mexicana decorating every surface.
We then all met up again and went to on a special tour of shrines and temples that had been lit up for night viewing. It looked stunning and we were lucky to be there at the right time to catch the festival. There were crowds of people out to watch performances and to shop at the souvenir shops. I was ovewhelmed looking at the girls dressed in their beautiful kimono.
Back at the ryokan I took another onsen before bed (at that stage becoming addicted to at least 2 a day!) which along with the pina coladas knocked me out for another blissful sleep. Bring on Day Three!