Palace, temples, tea

To get into the Kyoto Imperial Palace, you have to fill out an application with your passport number so I did that this morning shortly before the 10:00 English tour. Not all that impressive. I liked the vermillion coloured building the best.

Afterwards, I went to Tawaraya Yoshitomi for some sweets. It's two blocks north of Imadewara, on the west side. Look for the Kanji character for dragon on their sign. I'm not sure what I bought, some pastries filled with sweet bean pastes mostly.

I took a bus towards Ginkakuji, stopping around Kyoto University hoping for a quick and cheap bite to eat. Ended up getting deep fried chicken bits, which were even reheated in the convenience store microwave. The "Silver Pavilion" temple is quite nice, especially the sand sculptures and the surrounding mossy forested area. But the walkaround is quite short, as more than one group of tourists (myself included) looked bewildered when they stumbled across the Exit sign.

Under constant rain, I took Philosopher's Path down towards Nanzenji. There are lots of places to stop for a drink or to browse artists' creations.

At the temple, I really liked the gate with the weathered wooden pillars. It was big enough for you to sit under and take a rest. The brick bridge is beautiful as well. My plan was to walk to Keage subway station but got lost in some side streets. I ended up at a five-way intersection and took 15 minutes to get my bearings. A lot of the maps I was carrying didn't name each street or weren't to scale. I find the big bilingual maps placed at major intersections and subway exits to be the best. Of course, that's when you can find one. I eventually followed a street towards Westin Miyako Kyoto Hotel and made my way back to the ryokan.

Trolled Shinbashi and Hanami streets at night looking for geishas who go to work in the area. I wasn't the only one: there were a lot of paparazzi tourists with cameras in hand doing the same thing.

The visitor's guide mentioned Gion Matsuno, an eel specialist, so I had a nice dinner there.

I'm getting really good at saying, Nihongo wa wakarimasen as everyone assumes I speak Japanese. Maybe I should dye my hair or something.

Afterwards, I got a ticket for an event at Gion Corner. This is a huge theatre which puts on performances of traditional Japanese arts. There's a longer show involving comedy, dance and music but I booked a spot for the shorter tea experience. The two women first demonstrated how to purify the tea utensils, prepare the tea, drink it then reset everything. Very, very ritualistic, right down to the number of quarter-turns of the bowl, positioning of the cleaning cloth and whisk, wiping of the cup, etc. I found out later many other venues do tea ceremonies for far less, so you may want to compare.