Takaragaike Park - Kodomo no Rakuen

About 15-20 minutes walk from our apartment, we found a great playground, Kodomo no Rakuen (Children's Paradise). On the weekdays, we can play nearly alone and on the weekends, it's an incredibly popular place with tons of families enjoying themselves and a picnic lunch. Some people even bring along camping tents to provide some shade.

Vanessa especially liked the giant climbing spider's web and the hammock swing. Xavier loved the maze and the "mountain" in the middle of the park. Zoe insists the park had delicious rocks. Toddlers are weird, haha.

Shichi-Go-San

In the Heian Period (794-1185) a ritual called Shichi-Go-San or Seven-Five-Three was developed by nobles to celebrate rites of passage for their three year old girls, five year old boys and seven year old girls.

Three - originally the age at which samurai children stopped shaving their heads
Five - Boys are allowed to wear their first hakama (samurai formal bottom wear)
Seven - Girls are allowed to wear an obi around their kimonos instead of a plain cord

The modern version of this celebration involves dressing up the children and going to shrines to be blessed with health and longevity. The children get decorative bags with crane and turtle designs as well as chitose-ame (1000 year candy) that looks like a huge, straight candy cane which is supposed to ensure a long life and probably a sugar high. :)

7-5-3 takes place at many shrines throughout Kyoto in the weeks surrounding November 15th. I went to Heian Shrine to check it out. Practicing my Japanese in "a real life setting" as recommended by my sensei, I congratulated several families on their children's milestones and asked if I could take some photos. It was really fun and the kids were absurdly adorable!
とてもとてもかわいいですね！

Kinkakuji Temple

On Sunday afternoon we went to Kinkakuji Temple. It is also known as the Golden Pavillion because one of the main buildings is covered with gold leaf.

The temple was beautiful as the sun glinted off the pavilion and the nearby mirror pond, Kyooko-chi. We got to try our hand at taking artsy photos of the beautiful surroundings and we each tried our luck with a fortune as well. This time both of our fortunes were fairly good so we did not need to tie them on a line. Whew!

A group of sightseeing children from Aichi Prefecture stopped us and asked if they could speak with us in English for a few minutes. It was fun. Lots of basic "What is your name?" "Where are you from?" type sentences all around. One kid accidentally skipped a line in his book and said "I'm from baseball. What do you like?" Sugoi desu ne.

Kyoto City Zoo

Today I went to the Kyoto City Zoo. It was pretty cool, but definitely no Bronx Zoo or San Diego Zoo. I think I've been spoiled by having the chance to see so many cool zoos and aquariums that now any new places find it hard to match up. :)

The habitats were old fashioned and largely in need of repainting/landscaping, but there was a large selection of animals, like this adorably bored jaguar and this hippo who kept flicking her ears non-stop. I especially enjoyed watching the feedings of the Rhesus monkeys and penguins. The monkeys went crazy for their meal of apples, carrots, potatoes, bananas, and ... sardines. The penguin feeding was fun because the zoo keeper let the crowd (me included!) throw the fish to the penguins. It was fun, not to mention really cute when the small kids would try to toss the fish and miss the enclosure entirely.

But, the most notable part of the zoo was finding out that children under age 12 get in free. This resulted in hundreds of school children and their teachers swarming around the zoo all day on field trips. Most of the classes had uniforms where every child was dressed the same and wore the same BRIGHTLY colored hats. The youngest children each had backpacks with adorable characters like Hello Kitty, Winnie the Pooh, Anpanman, and others emblazoned all over! Most of the older elementary school aged kids had backpacks like these, but also carried little zoo clipboards around and took notes or drew sketches.

At the lion/tiger/jaguar enclosure, a family with two little girls and a little boy sang the following song incessantly: "Lion-san, Lion-san, Lion-san, Konnichiwa Lion-san". It was very cute .... and funny when the Lion actually growled back at them. I guess the Lion demands more complicated lyrics in songs dedicated to him.