Kyoto observations

Gion is the famous geisha district of Kyoto, with lots of old wooden buildings occupied by restaurants, tea houses, and bars. I didn't see any geishas, but apparently they don't come out until it's dark. There are very few of them left these days anyway. It was cold and cloudy when we walked around Gion with our volunteer guide from the Good Samaritans club. Tourists and busy streets gave way to this quiet riverside scene, right in the middle of it all.

My memories of Kyoto will be a blur of temples and tourist sites, of walking back and forth between our hotel and the super modern (and controversial) train station, the Matsubaya inn, where we slept on futons on tatami mats on the floor for four nights. Kyoto was more relaxed than Tokyo, but also more touristy.

It's getting close to New Year's here. Up until Christmas, we heard Christmas music in literally every store we entered, and lighted tree displays were everywhere. That ended after December 25th, which was not a holiday here, but now people are gearing up for New Year's, and many of them are off of work now. In Kyoto we wandered through two contrasting markets - the Nishiki market, with hundreds of food stalls selling an array of pickles, fish, and fermented bean pastes,
and the basement of the department store Daimaru, with its stylish displays of many of the same foods. (Department stores are a different experience here, particularly the food floor. You can buy a whole dinner's worth of delicious gourmet items, heat them up in the microwave provided, and enjoy some great cuisine on the spot.) However, since it's close to New Year's, even in the sleek department store, the hawking has begun in earnest, and from each section, sales clerks beckon you to buy, buy, buy. And here, randomly, yet another excellent French bakery.