Messages: 10058 Location: Tokyo/Kyoto
Registered: March 2004
And the light dies down on Gion...
Sun, 08 April 2018 09:29
Most of Kyoto's streets don't have much in the way of corporate identity, ramshackle street furniture arrangements, ramshackle traditional buildings next to marble and glass modernity. If visual cacophony had a barnyard sound then this would be it*. The Gion district is different, it's been the centre of Kyoto's Geisha/Maiko culture for, well, for longer tham I've been here and that means that it has hung on to tradition. We haven't been eating out much of late, Mrs. L. is busy thesis writing and doing the day job and I'm working on some goofy stuff and getting prepped for a new semester. We were going stir crazy so it was time to eat out, we had a walk through Gion and along Shirakawa a couple of evenings ago on the way to dinner....
The restaurants overlooking the river obviously don't have front doors river side, they can be fiendishly difficult to find because the entrance is on the other side of a block or through a tiny passageway.
*This is not a disparaging comment, there's always loads of good stuff to see -- architectural details, personal touches, ..., there's just so much of it.
