Plum Blossom Festival

The kids and I went to the Plum Blossom Festival at the Kitano Tenmangu Shrine.  The festival is at the same time as the regular 25th of the month flea market. You can read a little about it here (http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3939.html).  It was raining and a little chilly, so we didn't spend as much time at the flea market as usual. We had lunch which consisted of dango, M's favorite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dango) and yakisoba for N (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakisoba) and I had takoyaki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takoyaki). We also had fried chicken, and little fried circles filled with either custard or mochi and red bean.

pictures!

N eating yakisoba

rainy day

N&M in front of a bull decorated with prayers, and a plum tree

There were purple/red..

... and white. Looks like we should come back later in the week if we can to see the best color.

M has a VIPEr tattoo on her face, and I bribed them with hot chocolate because they wanted to go home immediately after eating.

You can see how wet and muddy it was. N insisted on wearing shorts even though it was in the 40s. We told him it was going to be cold... His teeth were chattering the whole time.

There was a place you could buy tickets to walk through the garden, but the kids were cold and wet and the blossoms weren't really open. Maybe Wendy and I can come back this week and enjoy the walk through what looked like a lovely garden.

One last photo. This shrine is near the Aikido dojo the kids and Wendy go to. We always see this place near the bus stop, and finally got a picture. We call it the "barf" shop, which is why M is "barfing." ベスト is katakana for "best" so this is the best haircut in Kyoto, apparently.  But it looks like it says "Bart" or "Barf."