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Kyoto with Gate 1: Day One

Beautiful blue skies after Hagibis

The day dawned bright and clear! It was a shame we couldn’t stick around Osaka for another day, but, alas, we had to get on the bus and head to Kyoto.

First up: another temple! The Kiyomizu temple, to be exact. Gorgeous temple with amazing grounds. And the water: there is a waterfall with three streams of water. Legend says you can pick one to drink from: long life, success at school, or success in love. We opted out of it because it seemed unsanitary, but after we passed by we saw that all the ladles come from a UV-light bathed bin, so they had that covered!

Next up was a tea ceremony, where we all watched a tea master prepare tea … and then we all had a chance to make some ourselves! The husband made a perfectly frothy cup of tea, while the rest of us looked on, sad at the state of affairs in our own cups.

At the shop attached to the tea ceremony stop, I picked up a book on furoshiki that the husband noticed. Katy had given us a demonstration on the bus and it. was. magical. I’m all about the origami, but furoshiki is a whole ‘nother level. It involves fabric, and you use folding and knots to turn it into a bag, or a bottle carrier, or a neat little book parcel, or gift wrap.

Lunch time took us to a street of shopping! Where I picked up some gorgeous furoshiki … scarves? Fabrics? And also a conbini lunch, where the guy behind the counter microwaved it for me! Seaweed-wrapped rice balls, half a medium-boiled egg, katsu, there was more in there that I can’t remember. It was all delicious, is what do I remember.

Next up, the Kitano Shrine, which was full of cows (bulls?) in red bibs. And that’s about all I can remember of that one …

And then the Golden Pavilion! That one is impossible to forget. It is intensely gold. We passed by some pot that it’s good luck if you can get a coin into. Which, the husband totally did! Guess I’ll keep him around.

And then the last stop of the night. The worstest, unnecessariest, stop of our trip. Geisha-hunting at Gion corner. It had been a long day: we started the morning in Osaka, rode the bus to Kyoto, saw two temples and a shrine, learned to make tea, and had a quick shopping stop. It was dinner time, we were all tired, and here we were, stopping to hope we’d get a glimpse at some geisha.

We did not see any geisha.

We *might* have seen some on a bus that passed by, but they may also have been tourists playing dress-up for the day.

So that was a bust, and we headed to our hotel. Which was not terribly close to a train station, but did have a shuttle that would have taken us to one, had we desired. (Like for dinner: train stations = restaurants.)

But we were tired, so we picked up some conbini food and called it a night. Note: I made sure to get jerky and cashews … actual protein sources … for the husband.

There was surprise chocolate in the bread!

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