If you’re like me, when you reach a milestone birthday, you kind of want to celebrate all month long. 🙂 After the Tainan trip with my cousins, I left Bridgette with my parents in Hong Kong and hopped on another flight…this time, to Osaka and Kyoto with a few of my girlfriends from the Bay Area.
Once you start having kids, it’s really, really hard to plan any non-family trips with your girlfriends, so it’s somewhat of a miracle that we were actually able to do this. Back at home, whenever we see one another, we’re usually with our kids and so, conversations are often interrupted, activities have to be cut short to accommodate nap times, and we’re all generally in a pretty tired state of being. It was refreshing to get to hang out on this trip in a very different state of being, one where nobody was pulled away to attend to a child, and one where nobody was in a rush to get home.
The first 3 days were spent in the beautiful city of Kyoto, a city full of beauty and culture. It’s so vastly different from Tokyo, and I loved getting to be outdoors in the nature all the time, even though it was pretty cold in early March. We visited a number of shrines, gardens, and temples there, including the Fushimi-Inari-taisha and the Kiyomizu-dera.
After our time in Kyoto, we spent the remainder of our trip (2 days) in Osaka, where we caught up on some shopping time. Ofcourse, being in Japan, food was a huge part of our trip the entire time and we indulged ourselves in sushi, ramen, shabu-shabu, kaiseki, and lots and lots of sweets. Japanese pastries are the best, and perfect for my palette as it’s never too sweet. Best of all, the presentation is always perfection!
Unfortunately, 3 out of 5 in our group got sick mid-trip (including myself) so a lot of time was lost being ill in bed. Still, I’m grateful that we had the chance to take this trip together and must thank the troop of hubbies and grandparents that helped to make it happen for us!
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