Japan Day 6: A Rainy, Slower Day in Kyoto

After several very busy days in Japan—and our travel day from Osaka to Kyoto—we were tired.

The original plan for today was lunch at Nishiki Market, followed by the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove in the evening. Instead, we slept in.

And I think we needed it.

By the time we got going, lunch had turned into an afternoon visit to Nishiki Market.

I knew Nishiki Market was famous for food, but I hadn’t realized there were also so many little shops to explore. We wandered around, tried some tempura and, of course, had ice cream. The market ended up being such a success with all of us that we decided we wanted to come back the very next day.

The Samurai & Ninja Museum was actually on our itinerary for the next day, but since it was raining, we decided to move that visit to today instead.

It turned out to be a really good rainy-day activity.

The museum visit included a guided tour covering the history and lives of the samurai, as well as the influence samurai culture has had on Japanese society. Our guide explained everything really well, which made the history much more interesting and accessible.

We also got to handle some of the weapons.

And then came the shuriken throwing contest.

There were around 30 of us lined up in front of a wall. The guide first showed us how to throw the practice shuriken, then gave everyone some time to practice before the actual contest began.

None of us was expecting to be particularly good at it. Mine didn’t even stick to the wall!

But kid 2’s did. Not only that, she managed to throw hers closer to the center of the target than anyone else in the group.

She won the contest!

And her prize? She got to keep one of the practice shuriken!

It was completely unexpected, which made it even more fun—and definitely one of the moments we remember most from our visit to the museum.

After the contest, visitors also had a chance to try on samurai armour, although we decided to skip that part.

By the evening, technically, we still could have gone to Arashiyama. The rain wasn’t particularly heavy—it had just been raining pretty much all day.

But by then, the kids were back at the Airbnb. They were warm. They were cozy.

There was absolutely no enthusiasm for putting shoes back on and heading outside into the rain.

So Arashiyama didn’t happen.

And that was fine.

We walked a little less than 5 km that day, making it one of our lighter days of the trip. After everything we’d done over the previous few days, I don’t think any of us minded.

It was also our first chance to really get a feel for Kyoto, and it immediately felt quite different from Osaka. I still find it difficult to explain exactly what made it feel different. The atmosphere simply wasn’t the same. It felt like we had arrived somewhere new rather than just moved on to another Japanese city.

Our carefully planned Kyoto itinerary was already changing because of the weather, but so far, the alternatives were working out pretty well.

Coming Next

The rain continues to change our plans on Day 7.