Kyoto

So, yesterday (sorry for the lack of an update) we were in Kyoto the whole day. First we went to a flea market (with antiques, food, old samurai weaponry and more) placed around Kitano Tenman-gū shrine. Which was a nice change of scene from all the shrines, so we spend more time browsing the stands than we did exploring the temple itself.


Kyoto also has many many world heritage sites so naturally we went to see a few of them. We went to Ryōan-ji a rock garden belonging to the Myoshin-ji school of the Rinzai branch of Zen Buddhism.



After that we went to Kinkaku-ji the famous golden pavilion. The Golden Pavilion is set in a magnificent Japanese strolling garden (kaiyū-shiki). The pond in front of it is called Kyōko-chi (Mirror Pond). There are many islands and stones on the pond that represent the Buddhist creation story. On the gronds there is also a shinto (the old nature religion of Japan) shrine to the god of fire on these grounds. When I was here 5 years ago I made an offering and after that I had a lot of luck with lighters that other people said were empty (but surprisingly worked when I tried them), so I figured I wouldn't tempt fate and made another offering this time too :D


After dinner we went into Gion for a few drinks and hopefully see a Geisha on her way to the next tea house. Gion is a district of Kyoto, Japan, originally developed in the Middle Ages, in front of Yasaka Shrine. The district was built to accommodate the needs of travelers and visitors to the shrine. It eventually evolved to become one of the most exclusive and well-known geisha districts in all of Japan. (AND NO A GEISHA IS NOT A HOOKER :D) The geisha in the Gion district do not refer to themselves as geisha, instead, Gion geisha use the local term geiko. While the term geisha means "artist" or "person of the arts", the more direct term geiko means essentially "a child of the arts" or "a woman of art". We weren't so lucky but I think this might be a geiko in learning (someone correct me if I'm wrong).