Kyoto Day 3

On to day three in Kyoto. We were pretty tired at this point, but we still had so much to do and see!

We got up early and walked to the Gion district, where the Geishas reside and are trained. It was too early to see them walking around (which is apparently a rare sighting anyway) but we wanted to see the sights before our photo shoot as a Geisha and a Samurai.

Random, really funky modern art. I will leave it open for your interpretation.

I believe this is Hotel Gion, a landmark in the district.

It was weird seeing Spanish on a sign.

The Gion district was really "old" and authentic. Very quiet and peaceful in the morning.

These kids actually followed us for a few blocks before they worked up the nerve to ask if they could practice their English with us. Of course we did and they were fantastic! They were really excited when I agreed to write them a note that they could translate later.

Yup, that's a two way street... for cars, not just bikes and pedestrians.

Kirk really liked this area. She thought it was pretty.

The sign for the photo studio. You have already seen those pics in a previous post so we will move along to after the shoot.

Kirk and I were really hungry after the photo shoot so we stopped at a restaurant that was probably the American equivalent of a Bob Evans. So not expensive but not fast food. We each ordered an iced, slightly sweetened green tea. They were delicious.

Kirk ordered a tempura chicken with rice, eggs, green onions and special sauce.

I ordered pork curry udon.

Kirk will tell you I needed the bib way more than she did.

Looking silly but excited for good food.

After lunch, we took a train to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. It's known for having approximately 10,000 Torii Gates on site.

I believe the notes are fortunes or good luck wishes.

There were statues of foxes everywhere (and of course they all reminded us of Bruce). Apparently, the foxes are regarded as messengers for Inari Shrines. One holds a key and one holds a scroll.

This is only the first of many, many more Torii Gates

Kirk thought this little girl was "precious"

Inari Shrines (which includes a lot of property in the related grounds)  in particular represent the patron of business as well as the god of rice. Business folks pay a lot of money to erect Torii Gates for good luck at these shrines, hence the reason there are thousands of gates.

We believe the writing indicates who paid for that particular Torii Gate. There were different sizes so you could tell who forked over more money.

I was walking through a group of smaller Torii gates.

Notice the foxes...

I guess people could decorate their own fox faces.

I don't believe these mini-gates are counted in the 10,000 total gates figure. They're just bonus.

A chart indicating prices for sponsoring a Torii Gate of your own.

 

There was a lot of hiking involved, as you can see from how high we are.

There were a lot of mini restaurants and ice cream shops up the side of the mountain. We think they use mountain bikes to bring supplies up to them.

There were all kinds of side paths that led to their own little alcoves and mini-shrines. It was pretty confusing to figure out what was the actual path versus the places that would merely sidetrack you.

At this point, we were really, really tired from all the walking and hiking. In the past few days, we'd probably already walked well over 20 miles, so our feet were pretty sore. We decided to just follow any path that went downhill.

There were still Torii Gates along the path down the mountain, so we assumed it was still part of the Fushimi Inari Shrine.

A bamboo forest and a dirt path... looks a bit different than the rest of the Shrine property... hmmmmmm

We were still seeing things that made us think we were on the right path, but we stopped seeing other people and it got really quiet.

I guess we took a path that took us down the back side of the mountain and plopped us straight into a Japanese neighborhood. Thankfully Kirk's iPhone maps app includes little footpaths that look like you're trespassing in someone's backyard that led us to the main road and back to a train station.

At least it was a nice neighborhood. An older guy on a bike stopped and asked "train station?" so he pointed us in the right direction and said "200 meters". Well it was more like a mile, so his directions were just a tad off.

A random shrine we passed on our way to the train station.

As tired as we were, we wanted to see a few more places. We found this awesome sword store where everything was ridiculously expensive but definitely authentic. Even the practice, wooden swords were out of our budget.

Ancient Japanese warrior gear.

Ninja Stars

More random shrines in the middle of downtown Kyoto

Even the alleys in Japan are clean!

What would our last day in Kyoto be if we didn't stop at another pub? This one was British pub, Pig and Whistle.

We really look beat.

Uh yes, that is Fish and Chips. Third one in three days.

We branched out and also ordered a blue cheese and tomato pizza. It was super tasty! It's difficult to get good cheese in Japan and their pizzas are typically upwards of $35 for the equivalent of a medium pizza in the States, so this one was super yummy!

Day three complete.