Kyoto, Gion

(Kiyomizu)

We started the day with breakfast in the Amherst House



and then a walk down to the office on the Imperial Palace grounds where you can sign up for tours to various imperial places. We made reservations for the Katsura imperial villa tomorrow at nine in the morning, and then took a cab to the Kiyomisu temple. The cab driver took us through several interesting areas, the most interesting of which was the Gion neighborhood, where we saw a Geisha in training (a Maiko) walking up one of the beautiful stone paved alleyways. He let us off at the temple and we walked up the steps to the main temple.



The latticed foundation was pretty impressive, but as usual at spots like that, I had a hard time finding a unique shot! I did shoot a half of a roll, so I'll keep my fingers crossed and update this entry when they get developed and scanned. From Kiyomisu temple, we walked down the hill to Kawai Kanjiro's house, but it was unfortunately closed, and we started making our way through the thoroughly uninteresting neighborhoods in between the house and the river. Along the way, I saw the first of what would be many posters and drink machines of Tommy Lee Jones shilling chilled coffee drinks. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but find it kind of amusing how big stars won't do that kind of product endorsement in the US, but are all over it in Europe and Asia.

The sun was beating down and eventually we relented and took a taxi to the train station, where we got money at the central post office, made train reservations for our trips to Magome and then said goodbye to our wives, who decided to go to Nara. Kenji and I found a photo store which sold 120 film and DV tapes, stocked up, and then took the subway. We accidentally got off at the Shijo station instead of the Karasuma station, where we had planned on transferring to the red line, but gave up, surfaced, and walked along Shijo street to the river. We stopped at an excellent tea shop along the way and bought some Hoji-cha tea. After crossing the river, we stumbled upon a beautiful tree lined street next to a river called the Shirakawa where I got a few unorignal shots of the river, and then continued on to the Gion district -- our original destination. The light was just getting good, and I managed to get a few interesting shots, and there happened to be a photographer doing a professional shoot of two Geishas. I quickly shot some handheld shots and even managed to get the tripod set up and get one more shot before some Spaniards walked in front of me and started taking pictures. That's one of the curses of the Hasselblad: people always seem to want to take the same photo as you, no matter how lame it is. Getting in front of me was a first though.


From the Gion district, we continued on to the Pontocho street, where we ran into Kenjis friends from San Francisco AGAIN, and then found an excellent restaurant, where we had grilled mackerel, grilled chicken, mochi with lotus roots, grilled cuttlefish, some special Tofu and thin mochi wrapped around pumpkin. Everything was superb, but the tofu was really unique. It had an interesting texture, and a wasabi/herring egg garnish. The tofu itself was different form any that I have had; the description said something about it being skimmed off the top of the tofu vat.