{"id":12104,"date":"2010-12-25T20:54:23","date_gmt":"2010-12-25T12:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=12104"},"modified":"2010-12-25T21:02:27","modified_gmt":"2010-12-25T13:02:27","slug":"day-4-kyoto-higashiyama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2010\/12\/25\/day-4-kyoto-higashiyama\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 4: Kyoto – Higashiyama"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Higashiyama area sits at the foot of the mountains and is at the eastern edge of Kyoto City. It\u2019s pretty rustic and secluded in some parts, but in the lanes leading up to Kiyomizu Temple, becomes a lot more commercialized with numerous restaurants, souvenir and pottery shops on both sides of the lanes as we\u2019ll see later on.<\/p>\n

The streets were a little confusing to follow, and that each public map that we saw seemed to be drawn differently to scale, and weren\u2019t always oriented in the right cardinal directions. But we got our bearings by following the Yasaka Pagoda in the near distance and walked in that general direction.<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3521-kyoto-higashiyama\"
The sun was out for a few fleeting seconds that let me take this picture of a late Autumn bloomer. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3524-kyoto-higashiyama\"
Most establishments were still closed at 9:30 AM.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3527-kyoto-higashiyama\"
Touch the roadside Buddha for good luck.:)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n

You can\u2019t tell from these pictures, but it was freezing cold despite it being mid-morning at about 9:30 AM already.<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3529-kyoto-higashiyama\"
That Ling is wearing her hoodie and ignoring how unglam she looks says how cold it was.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Upon turning a corner, we were surprised to see not one but four Maikos all immaculately dressed and just ahead of us! We weren\u2019t expecting to see Geikos of course, but had been keeping our fingers crossed to be able to see a Maiko later in the evening, as the travel guides noted that you\u2019d still need a lot of luck and your best chances typically lie in trying to catch them in the late afternoon in the district as they go to entertain their clients. It was fabulously good luck to see not one but four.:)<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3533-kyoto-maikos\"
Maikos! Can you spot Ling in the picture? :)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3540-kyoto-maikos\"
I nearly went all paparazzi on them but thought better of it... I took the D300 off drive-mode!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3542-kyoto-maikos\"
The clogs they wore went klick-klock up the stone pavements. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3547-kyoto-maikos\"
Clash of the old and new when one of the Maikos took out a small compact camera!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3550-kyoto-maikos\"
Shortly after one of the four took this picture for the other three, I offered to take a picture for all four which they accepted. Somewhere out there is a picture of these four Maikos, taken by me LOL.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3553-kyoto-maikos\"
Sayonara. Hopefully we'll see them again soon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I can only imagine the commotion the four would have caused if there were more people about. Being able to see and watch the Maikos for all of 10 minutes was the tourist-y highlight of the day for me (foodie experiences are in a different category altogether LOL).<\/p>\n

With the Maikos behind us, we continued up the lanes towards Kiyomizu-dera Temple.<\/p>\n

\"blog-2010-japan-DSC_3556-kyoto-higashiyama\"
Continuing on our trek... up a gentle incline.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Continued in the next post.:)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Higashiyama area sits at the foot of the mountains and is at the eastern edge of Kyoto City. It\u2019s pretty rustic and secluded in some parts, but in the lanes leading up to Kiyomizu Temple, becomes a lot more<\/p>\n

Read More Day 4: Kyoto – Higashiyama<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[463,481,137],"class_list":["post-12104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-traveling","tag-japan-2010","tag-kyoto","tag-d300","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}