Kyoto Botanical Garden

 Sunday, March 1st, dawned rainy and cold.  We slept in and got a late start because we were all pretty wiped out from all our walking the day before.  I calculated that with the monkey park hike, walking all over the city of Arashiyama, and doing the Fushimi Inari hike, we walked between 7-8 miles.  The weather looked chilly and wet, too.  But, we tried not to let it ruin our time in this historic city.  It would just be museum day, that's all. (This is Kyoto Tower.)

Caitlin really wanted to go to the Botanical Gardens while we were here, so away we went.  It took a couple of trains, but luckily the station was right next to the gardens.  By the time we got there, the rain was coming down pretty good.  We had two umbrellas that was at the rental for our use, but they didn't cover very many of us.  Kirstin got one, and the rest of us had to deal with the other one and our coat hoods. 

The building was leaking, but it was still beautiful inside the garden.  With the rain and the plants, it smelled earthy. 

The Kyoto Botanical Garden is mostly outdoor, and contains many plants found only in Japan.  It would have been lovely to walk around the grounds, but the downpour didn't really allow that.  Instead, we tried to make the best of what was in the building.  There were many strange plants.  We decided this one looks like a "truffla tree" from The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss. 

 

Audra loved looking at the flowers and the fish that were occasionally found in the ponds around the plants.

She especially loved these green goldfish (in the tree trunk reflection on the water).

Cool.

 There was some really wacky stuff in there, like this...flat hairy thing on a tree.

These were gorgeous.

In one room, there were many different kinds of fruit trees.  We saw a banana tree--our first one in real life!

We also saw our first cacao tree!  There was a papaya tree that was also neat, but we didn't recognize any other trees and the signs were mostly in Japanese kanji.  (Raymond has a hard time with the kanji, but he can read the simpler form of Japanese writing.  There are two different writing systems in Japan.)

 

  Besides the fruit tree room, there was a desert room, an orchid room, and even a night room!

This flower was really pretty, but the picture doesn't do it justice because it was in the night room.

We spent a couple of hours here, and then planned on going to another museum.  There were two sweet ladies who worked here who gave us three more umbrellas that they had lying around as we left.  That was so kind of them and we were very grateful!  These gifts gave us the courage to press on and continue exploring in spite of the rain.
We took a couple more trains and had to walk a little way to the next museum, but we were having a hard time getting there because of the heavy rain.  By the time we got to the museum, the kids were all soaked and just wanted to go back to the rental.  I guess the extra umbrellas were not enough to fortify us through the day.
We went back, dried off, and warmed up.  I will always remember Nathan walking down the street in the rain, crying and trying to hold his umbrella up in the wind.  Not the best day, but we were hopeful for a better one tomorrow.