3/2 - Samurai Armor, Bamboo Forest (Kyoto day 3 part 1)

And traveling is finally catching up to me…

We started the day on the wrong turn. Oops! We ended up at the subway station instead of the train station. So we had to book it all the way past Nijo Castle, which is huge by the way. We just made it onto the train for our samurai armor adventure on the west side of Kyoto.

A kind gentleman saw we were lost! He walked us around the corner and to the studio of Kouzu Shokai. (Thank you kind, sir!)

The awesome gals were ready for us with the armor all set out, and we came ready with shorts and v-neck shirts. In no time, they were gearing us up. From the tabi socks, white cotton under layer, to the baggy legged hakama, to all the heavy armor plaiting and helmet. You wouldn’t believe how many ties they had to tie! (Weren’t the fabrics gorgeous?)

Mike chose to dress up as Oda Nobunaga and I chose Date Masamune. (Date had black armor, an awesome helmet, and who could resist an eye patch?) I also asked for makeup and a mustache—had to do the whole experience!

(By the way, I asked about female characters like Tomoe Gozen, and they have them. But they don’t have a wig. With my white and purple hair, I didn’t think the Tomoe Gozen costume would work, and I didn’t have time to order a black wig.)

The armor was quite heavy. I’m not sure how people fought battles in this. But maybe it came with lots of practice. I also realized there is no way possible to sit prim and proper. You have to sit wide legged like a guy, lol!

Finally, we got to the photo shoot. Here are a few of our favorites.

And you know I had to have a picture with a naginata!

Most of the staff didn’t speak English, but they got the point across well for what we needed to do and made it fun. The samurai experience was an absolute blast and well worth the cost. 10/10 recommend.

We grabbed a quick lunch at a combini along the way. (My lunch was a salmon rice ball, salad, hot lemonade, and melon bread.)

Then we hopped on the bus to Arashiyama. This is where our luck was off.

1. Our Suica/IC cards didn’t work on the bus. (We think the problem was due to going through the subway gate, not using the subway, and the gate fussing that we came back through.) The subway station attendant supposedly fixed that. But the cards still didn’t work. Later, we tried to talk to a train station attendant and we think he helped us fix it. Hopefully, our cards will work tomorrow. But I’ll have change on hand ready to go if we use the bus, just in case. (Update, the card worked the next day!)

2. We had a long walk from the iconic bridge to the bamboo forest.

I was happy to see the bamboo forest this time, since I didn’t get to see it in 2017. I took videos of the wind going through the bamboo as they clacked together, but I don’t think that will upload. So here is a link on Dropbox with a 22 second video.

My ankle hurt, so we sat down for a quick snack.

I figured I could do one more tourist spot before crashing for the day, and I knew Mike would like Nijo. So we zipped over there. Catch that part of the adventure in the second post for today.