Cycling in 35 degrees

Husband survived the box and texted when he was getting on the plane. He had had to give up the bulldog sauce at customs, but the trainers got through fine. I woke early and the kids carried on sleeping so I went for an early morning walk round the block. It was already too hot at 8am.

We decided to cycle to the shrine of 10,000 red gates which was 35 minutes away. So, after another matcha latte tea and sweets, we set off in the now very hot sun. The temple provides bikes free of charge- which is amazing as not much is few of charge in Japan. We managed to find a lovely path along the river – saw loads of heron. Then we had to detour a bit as the path was closed – and we stopped in frequent shady bits just to cool off and take on more water. By the time we arrived at the shrine, I was the colour of the red gates (not quite the deep magenta of the final photo we had taken in Nepal, but I close second). We were all suffering. We bought two more umbrellas to provide some shade and locked up the bikes. It was heaving with tourists and even hotter. We dripped our way to the first set of gates and then as we walked on, the air got slightly less humid and the shade provided by the gates provided a tiny amount of relief.

It was awesome but I would like to go back in mid-winter.

We then sat for a good hour in a little restaurant in the temple grounds and ate shaved ice and cucumber rolls. The perfect antidote.

Fully rested and back to normal colour, we cycled home via the buddhists temple which has 1001 buddhas – this was awesome. No photos were allowed and you have to go if you are ever in Kyoto. Bell tried her luck at the fortune kiosk but yet again came up with an unfortunate fortune. Third time lucky, maybe!

It had been 24 hours since a burger, so me and Bert went to Mos burger which didn’t match Lucky Pierrot but still got the ok – so much so that Bert ordered another one.

Bell and I popped out for tempura later – which was so good. It’s still weird sitting in a restaurant with things in the table you aren’t sure what to do with, and very little understanding. When the waitress turned up with an enormous bowl of edamame beans and a plastic glove, I was confused. Her hand gestures indicated I had to put the glove on and scoop up as much of the edamame beans as I could. So I did. And she seemed ok with that. The tempura was delicious – we ordered a second round and more beers then staggered home in the heat to fall asleep.