Kyoto- Umekoji Locomotive Museum

Kyoto is a beautiful, historic city with 17 world heritage sites.  We decided not to visit any of them. We only had 1 day to explore in Kyoto and wanted to do some fun things the kids would enjoy.  We have visited a lot of temples and monuments in Asia (including several in Japan already) and they aren't at the top of the kids' list.
In the morning, we visited the Umekoji Locomotive Museum.  It had a real steam engine you can ride and lots of trains to climb in and examine.  On the way to the museum, we learned the Kyoto train line has local trains and rapid trains.  Local trains stop at every train station and rapid trains only stop at the major stops.  We were supposed to go one stop on the train, but ended up on the rapid train instead and it took us past our stop and we had to go back on the next local train the other direction.  Luckily, our train pass allowed us unlimited train rides.  

Umekoji museum, an old station house

Several of the museums/attractions had displays for pictures that included that day's date

On the steam train

Watching the trains

The steam train chugging through the cherry blossoms

All aboard

There wasn't a restaurant at the museum, but they did have a vending machine with microwave meals.  You put in your money and made your selection and it took the frozen meal and cooked it for 1-3 minutes before it appeared in the slot down below.  They had french fries, rice and sauce, chicken nuggets, and meatballs.  It was interesting.  We tried a few things and they were okay.

After the train museum, we took the train to Arashiyama, a beautiful part of Kyoto.  We wanted to visit the Iwatayama Monkey Park.  From the train station, it was about a 15 minute walk through town.  We passed the Tenryu-ji Temple on the way as well as numerous souvenir shops and restaurants.  Once you enter the Monkey Park, there is a long hike to get to the top of the hill to see the monkeys.  

Beautiful scenery on the way up

 There are signs all over the park warning you the monkeys are wild and telling you how to act with them.  You aren't supposed to look directly at the monkey, take pictures of the monkeys, or eat any food while in the park.  All the warnings make you think the monkeys could be dangerous or aggressive, but we had a good experience.  There were several workers at the top keeping a close eye on the monkeys (and visitors) to make sure there weren't any problems.  The monkeys casually walked around all the people.  They clearly were used to people and were not scared.  The hill was pretty high up and had a great view of the town below.

Monkeys at the top

Charlotte with a monkey hanging out nearby

panoramic view of Kyoto

 If you wanted to feed the monkeys, you could buy a bag of feed (either apples or peanuts) and feed them from inside a room with wiring on the windows.  The room was probably 20 feet by 50 feet.  It was interesting having the humans inside the "cage" feeding the monkeys, while the monkeys roamed free.

Charlotte feeding the monkeys

 When we were done feeding the monkeys, there was a fun playground for the kids.  There was a long slide and zip line the kids did over and over.  We walked back through town, did a little souvenir shopping then took the train back to our hotel and got some dinner.  It was a long, fun day and a great way to end our vacation.

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