expiration date 

after riding the train back to kyoto station, we went back to the minsyuku to pick up aina’s stroller. we’re pretty sure that she’ll be exhausted after all that climbing and she’ll be falling asleep really soon. yep, she snoozed as soon as her head touched the stroller.

we then walked from our hotel (which is located at Gojo-Karasuma) to the Kiyomizu Temple. maybe i’m getting old, but i thought it was pretty close from the hotel… and it looked close on the map, but, let’s put it this way: next time, we’ll take the bus.

we weren’t planning to go to the temple, because it’s rather late (over 3pm). but the street around there are full with food and trinkets to see.

strangely, though, it seemed that this time of the year, the Kiyomizu-dera was full with students. there were busses filled with junior high kids, there were highschool kids in kimono… basically, the street was full with kids. i wonder why…

and we also met an inu ninja…

so cute! girls are aww-ing and flocking to take picture of the little ninja with their cellphones.

and as we discussed the cuteness of the ninja, a voice of a woman called, “coba dulu kuenya”… it’s indonesian, saying, “come and give this cake a try”… it was the clerk in one of the sweet shops. and she’s speaking indonesian to us… that reason alone made us buy three boxes of the sweets…

we then stopped by the Tanuki cafe to rest. it was a long climb for me… or it felt like a long climb with pushing stroller with a kid sleeping in it. so i had to take a rest.

had some mochi and macha, which was yummy. the Tanuki cafe is located near the same restaurant that we had our lunch 5 years ago. the view is lovely from up there.

after the short rest, we continued walking through sannen-zaka and ninen-zaka. the whole time, aina was busy with her pocket camera, taking pictures here and there, just like us and other tourists.

she was even more delighted that we bumped into a ghibli shop at sannen-zaka.

after all that scenic walking, we walked back to shijodori as soon as the sun started to set. we were hoping to bump into a geisha or two… and it happened. there was one in a blue kimono, running out of the tea house into a waiting taxi right in front of it. the taxi immediately didn’t leave, so everyone assumed that it was still waiting for another geisha…

a crowd of tourists armed with their cameras immediately surround the area, waiting for (maybe) another geisha will come out and run into the car again…

after waiting for 10 minutes or so, we left… i felt bad to the geisha in blue. poor woman, trapped in a see-through window taxi with tons and tons of people around it taking pictures of her. so we continued on walking around Gion.

all that walking and geisha-hunting made us hungry… this time, we had dinner at Inoda Cafe, the one under Daimaru department store (thanks to naomi’s recommendation!). the curry pilaf was super tasty!

more photos in the album of the day: 14 september 2010.