{"id":13497,"date":"2024-07-27T17:35:50","date_gmt":"2024-07-27T23:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/?p=13497"},"modified":"2024-07-27T17:35:50","modified_gmt":"2024-07-27T23:35:50","slug":"japan-day-6-continued-kyoto-gion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/2024\/07\/27\/japan-day-6-continued-kyoto-gion\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan Day 6 continued – Kyoto, Gion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By late morning we finished at Fushimi Inari and some stalls and shops opened up nearby. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Strawberry chocolate mochi daifuku<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Matcha ice cream<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What excitement! A pedestrian train crossing!! I don’t get it \ud83d\ude00 Ben was very excited about this though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Another train!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Buy a lucky cat for Sam<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Fox-shaped cookies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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We took the train back to our home neighborhood. After a refreshing drink (with New Jeans on the machine!) Ben led me to the Shosei-en Garden. These garden grounds to the east of our hotel are part of the temple to the west of our hotel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A tree growing on a tree.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Buckwheat!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Back to hotel! Ben wanted to rest (remember, he started his day before me and hiked up the mountain farther!) I wanted to shop at the Yodobashi mall. I got some Japan-specific items at Uniqlo, and then we met for dinner at a Doria restaurant. Doria is basically rice casserole with bechamel sauce. Oh man, this was very tasty! Then I got a quick treat at Baskin Robbins. No non-dairy aside from sorbet, so I got strawberry macaron. Delish!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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K-pop group Treasure had a collab collection!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Escalators everywhere. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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What a food court\/dining level looks like in Japan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Screens on screens to place our order. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Ben got a mushroom chicken doria.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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My bubbly pumpkin doria. I chose the item with the most visible vegetables. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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There wasn’t enough ice cream on this trip for me! <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now we walked back to Nishi Hogan-ji Temple for an appointment. Ben has another penpal in Japan named Akiko. They are not as close as his other penpal, but she also wanted to meet us! She lives in a small town nearby and had work in Kyoto this week. She was able to meet us at the Lotus fountain between meetings. Akiko was very kind and enthusiastic to talk in person. Ben exchanged gifts and we took a few pictures. It was a short but sweet encounter! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Oh my gosh, they day is only half done! WE DID SO MUCH!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We popped into our room across the street to drop off our bags and for me to freshen up (into a new dress from Uniqlo!). Ben made the brilliant plan to take a taxi to the top of the hill in Gion so we could explore it walking downhill only. Love it! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gion was PACKED with tourists. I’m pleased that we glimpsed a real geisha in full costume from the back of the taxi. Everyone else you might see in photos are wearing rented kimonos, like we worse in Asakusa. The tiny streets and shops were packed with people posing for photos. It was so bizarre, like, everyone came only for an instagram shoot. As we sat in a cafe with drinks we watched a random woman walk in and pretend to shop three time while someone video taped her. Then she left without buying anything. So weird! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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New dress and new keychain from Fushimi Inari.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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We started at this shrine, with the only Japanese flag we’d see the whole trip.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mitarashi dango<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Cucumber on a stick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Olive soda<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Ben said these names are all company or family sponsors to the temple.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We left the historical Gion neighborhood to do some shopping at the “downtown” Kyoto street. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pride flags?!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I think we found the Nintendo store…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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There were many pet stores with adorable puppies and kitties on display.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I got too tired and hungry, so we went to this Indian restaurant. It was fine, not great. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now we were in the Teremachi shopping arcade. I had a hot tip that the Harajuku Chicago store was a good place to buy jinbei. This is a men’s summer garment that I hoped to get in Japan. (Koichi was confused when Ben told him I wanted one). Indeed, I found a lovely second-hand jinbei (that I’m wearing as I type this!) as well as a second-hand yukata to wear as a summer robe. Then I got a tanghulu for dessert (not nearly as good as the one in Shin-okobu) and we got a cab back to the hotel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Browsing the jinbei<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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My yukata!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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By late morning we finished at Fushimi Inari and some stalls and shops opened up nearby. What excitement! A pedestrian train crossing!! I don’t get it \ud83d\ude00 Ben was very excited about this though. We took the train back to our home neighborhood. After a refreshing drink (with New Jeans on the machine!) Ben led […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13589,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13497\/revisions\/13589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}