Travel to Kyoto

This morning started out the same as yesterday, but we headed to the train station instead.  It was raining pretty good when we woke up, but then cleared up to the point where the sun came out just in time to get onto the train.

ALASTAIR
A little about our guide, Alastair.  He was born and raised in Peterborough, Ontario, and lived in the beaches area of Scarborough for a while.  He currently lives in Greece on an island near Mykonos with his partner.  He’s done many trips over the last 25 years.  He took a bit of time off, but is back at it again.  A wonderful way to travel and see the world without costing anything!  But it’s not an easy job.  He speaks 8 languages fluently plus 1 or 2 sort of.  A wonderful person.

So off we went back to Nagoya to catch the train to Kyoto.  The colours are starting to come out in the trees here.  A little later than us.



The Japanese are very organized.  This is how to shop in the train station.



And here are a couple of shots of what the high-speed trains look like.
 


After we got to our hotel, we were off to do a short walking tour of Kyoto.  We visited the geisha area, called Gion.  


We had a local guide who gave us a run-down of the process surrounding how to become a geisha.  It’s certainly a dying art.  We saw lots of people dressed up as geishas, but they were only tourists.  The chances of seeing a geisha are pretty low.  There are only 130 in Kyoto out of 3-4 million people.  And it’s the largest area of geishas in the country.  Having said that, I’m not sure why anyone would want to become one.  So, I don’t have a picture of one.

We wandered the narrow streets and then visited the Yasaka Shrine.  The shrine was quite large and a beautiful area to walk through.



On the way there, we saw this.  Don’t see these every day.



When we were finished here, we hailed some taxis and headed back to the hotel.  We like this area.  We discovered that we have a Starbucks on the corner, a pub just across the street, and a little shop across from Starbucks.  A group of us decided to try out the pub.  They have happy hour!



And here is a shot of some of the group that joined us.  I’m putting their names in here so I remember them in the future.  Gail, Peter, David, Peter, and Donna.  All but David are from Calgary.  David is from Seattle.



We went out for dinner to a Kaiseki Ryori restaurant.  Everything from sashimi to beef to tempura to dessert.  It was all prepared and presented in courses, sort of how we do it at home.  There were 7 courses all presented beautifully.  Sorry, I don’t have a picture.

We are here in Kyoto for 4 nights,

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