Tuesday 30th April 2013
Today was looking so promising when we checked out from the Piece Hostel, headed to Ginkakuji to complete our visits to Kyoto’s temples, gardens, shrines and pavilions and then caught our penultimate shinkansen to Tokyo where we hoped we might get to travel at a world record speed. Continue reading A slow start to Tokyo
The late afternoon, Monday 29th April 2013
We’d spent most of today in the Higashiyama region of Kyoto and had arrived at Gion in the late afternoon. I first read Memoirs of a Geisha in 2006 after finishing my university exams and loved it straight away. The bulk of the story centres around the Gion region of Kyoto, which is the best-known Geisha district in Japan. I never thought we’d be able to get tickets to a show – they are incredibly popular, and most Japanese who go book months in advance. However, Ben used the tried and true method of showing up on a whim and asking if any were available. As luck would have it, they were.
Geisha are highly skilled artists who train for years to become expert in traditional Japanese dance and song. The Kyoto geisha (or geiko as they are more accurately called) are not prostitutes, though the history of geisha has involved different nuances of what is expected of a women whose profession is to entertain. I like to think along the lines of how the lonely planet puts it; that they are ‘living museums.’ Continue reading Geisha and Gion
We loved Kyoto and spent quite a lot of time immersed in history with several visits to temples and shrines so these are our experiences from Friday 26th April, Monday 29th April and Tuesday 30th April.
On the Friday we visited Fushimi-Inari Taisha; a shrine complex consisting of thousands of orange-red torii arranged along pathways around Mount Inari. Having seen it as a filming location in Memoirs of a Geisha we found it stunning in real life. We walked the 4km route up through the wooded slopes of the mountain which was wonderful in the late afternoon, early evening sunshine.
Saturday 27th April 2013
After Hiroshima we headed back along the Shinkansen to Kyoto and settled into our new home for the next few days. Our first full day in Kyoto got off to a bad start when a miss set alarm clock threatened to derail a unique experience.
Through luck rather than judgment we’d managed to coincide our visit to Kyoto with the annual Miyako Odori – one of the events in the Geisha calendar – which takes place for the month of April.