From Hanko to Tokyo(and back): Kyoto part 1(of 3)

Bit late this one. Sorry about that. So from 17th to 19th I would be spending time at Kyoto, longest outside Tokyo spent period for me. I found ryokan for me(traditional Japanese hotel) from site called Japanese quest houses. Convenient site where you specify stuff like price range and where you want to rent(and on what period) and they find and reserve suitable Ryokan for you. Very convenient!

Trip itself was uneventful as all it required was to get to Shinkansen and then wait for arrival as Kyoto lies in the Shinkansen route. Yey!

So arriving to Kyoto first thing I wanted to do is verify LOCATION of the Ryokan though I couldn't check in yet(too early). Luckily I had luckboxed and the Ryokan was very close to the Kyoto station I had arrived(mind you I had had arranged the booking via 3^rd party who found Ryokan based on price level and how many nights I would be spending. I did NOT have hand in choosing location!) so that was quickly done. Nice! Then I headed bit north finding temple I had spotted from the map near the station. Very, very, very big wooden building and again no photographing inside.

In it were some old poems(?) by Japanese people from past. Conveniently with translations provided for those who can't read the originals(and seeing they aren't computer generated text they were bit hard for me to decipher as well).

Once that was done I headed east for garden whose road sign I had spotted. Very nice traditional Japanese garden. Also had added bonus of being roughly between the temple and the place I would be meeting French person.

I btw love the way these old styled Japanese houses have the narrow walking area with windows. Though they are bit inconvenient size for me!

Ducks were hungry. Was funny to watch them walk around hunting whatever they were eating.

With garden explored I turned north and found the location of meeting so again utilizing nice convenient locations headed east toward Gion area of Kyoto. This is the area that Geisha's are famous for from pre-world war 2 and back so lots of old buildings were on sight.

Close to 2 pm I spotted interesting looking oldish building so headed there interested if I could find something nice. Turned out it wasn't temple or anything but I spotted ticket window with starting times of shows. One was 2 pm and so after bit of oomphing and aamphing(tickets weren't that cheap) I decided to buy one without even knowing into what this would get me into! I had suspicion it might be some sort of traditional Japanese dance/show performance but for all I know it could be strip tease show(lol) though didn't look place for that and time was bit early too.

Well as it turns out my suspicion was spot on so for next hour and 5 minutes I sat watching maiko's(?) or at least some females with white painted faces and kimono's playing instruments(shamisens, some sort of bells, flutes etc), singing(though took me a while to notice that it had words in it) and coreographed dancing. There were bunch of young females playing on left and bunch of old ones playing(and one singing) on right. Then about 20 young females doing dancing. These kimono's had very low reaching slit on the back showing quite a bit of their neck and back area which reminded me of what I read once that for Japanese female neck is much like bare leg is for western people.

After dancing it became series of small performances where I think the small groups of 2-3 persons(think some of them were male. That or females wearing male costumes and hair styles) doing some sort of short stories but having bit of trouble even understanding what words the old female was singing I had hard time following the story so was basically just enjoying the elegant dances and the rather unusual musical performance.

One thing that struct me was in one group the extremely long hairs the females had. I wonder are they really that long or did they have hair extension? One had hair that reached all the way to ground! If real must be bit inconvenient! Another thing that struct me whole show was how fastly and efficiently they kept changing the stages so it was constantly on the change. The floor itself was filled with holes from which they raised background pieces(or in one case bunch more of females playing and singing).

Overall quite interesting and oddly bewitching performance. No regrets going there and wouldn't mind doing it again. Had wanted to see some sort of traditional performance so happy I got to see it even if it was purely by accident :lol:

Later noticed from the ticket it was called Miyako odori(odori means dance) which is performing here on this April.

After the performance I headed toward temple whose gates I had spotted shortly before wandering into the show and noticed there was yet another park there. The Kyoto is FILLED with temples so if you are temple fan you can probably spend days going through them.

On my way back found pretty fountain.

After this I figured good time to check in to hotel. For one I wanted to reduce the load. For second figured better to confirm I DO have room to sleep while I still have time to find alternative place in case there's some sort of mix up. Thankfully no such thing so I left luggage there and headed back to streets of Kyoto.

Little piece the Ryokan had on the reception area.

Nice room to stay in for couple days.

Yey got to sleep on futons here too(no surprise there!). I find these surprisingly nice sleeping platforms.

Even room had items like this.

And again back where I had gone. I had noticed international manga museum from wikipedia that was fairly close to the meeting place so figured I have just enough time to go there and then to meeting. Wasn't so interested in manga's themselves(wouldn't have time to read them anyway though of course seeing all the walls could be fun) but more interested actually in the building. It used to be school and I have had some interest in what sort of buildings they are. Maybe there's some differences to Finnish schools. But obviously you just don't go to school. They are not exactly tourist spots :lol: So figured this is about as close to such chance as I can get.

On my way spotted this funny "little" bird. Kept posing like king of the world :D

But the damn place is closed on Wednesday's. How come every time I go to place that's closed on specific day between Monday and Friday it's always the day I'm visiting. Lol. Not sure do I have time/interest to go later.

Something that became quite obvious as a difference between Kyoto and Tokyo is that number of kimono users is LOT higher. I lost quite fast count of kimono wearing female and men, especially in parks and temple areas. Seems kimono's are used much more both by older and younger generation. Well can't say I complain!

Also the streets are bit easier to navigate than in Tokyo. Overall I think I prefer Kyoto though if I was going to move to one of the two probably Tokyo as easier to get apartment and at least I would have few contacts I might be able to meet time to time.

At evening I met with French person that had invited me for meeting if I come to Kyoto. We walked around, he showed various restaurants, we ate some sort of omelet+rice things(mine had chicken), went to book store to see if we could find bit old manga I have been looking(success for one, failure on other) and then for cup of sake to bar before I returned to Ryokan 35 minutes before outer door closed(I had kept eye on when I need to leave so I don't accidentally end up locked out! Benefit from walking back and forth ryokan and meeting place was that I had good idea of time it takes. 30 minutes. So starting hour before was well in safe limits.