{"id":33089,"date":"2022-12-16T18:57:24","date_gmt":"2022-12-16T10:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=33089"},"modified":"2026-03-12T21:54:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T13:54:23","slug":"day-06-kyoto-gion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2022\/12\/16\/day-06-kyoto-gion\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 06 @ Kyoto – Gion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 06 is our last full day in Kyoto before we continue on to the second segment of our 15-day trip. In our initial planning, we\u2019d listed several more places to visit on Day 06 – and the list included Kyoto Imperial Palace, Kyoto Botanical Gardens, and Kyoto Gyoen National Garden. But maybe it was because we\u2019d already visited quite a few parks and gardens by this point, or that we\u2019d walked and explored quite a fair bit already – or that the step counters on all our smartwatches were clocking in between 20,000 to 25,000 steps every day – or that we were mindful we\u2019d need to get back to our hotel reasonably early to start packing for check-out. We ended up dropping the rest of the afternoon\u2019s initially planned places and settled for just revisiting Gion<\/strong> and taking it easy.<\/p>\n

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There are a large number of shops where you can rent kimonos from. Price ranges seem to start from about \u00a52,500 onward.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gion is Kyoto\u2019s famous district with its narrow alleyways lined with wooden machiya houses, and where – if you\u2019re really lucky – you just might spot geishas. Back on our 2010 trip, I chanced upon three dressed in that fashion and thought they were maikos, but a comment from a visitor to our blog suggested that they were more likely locals doing dress-up, given that they were largely unescorted and also their manner of walking.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, after lunch at the fabulous Ramen Miyako restaurant<\/a> – the thick roast pork broth is to die for – we were wandering about in the alleyways when we ran into what looked like a real geisha with her patron visiting houses. It was actually the wife who was super curious, as she spotted a group of local Japanese with pro camera gear lurking about, and being the curious person she is, discovered that they were paparazzing a geisha. So, she did the very Singaporean thing when we see crowds: she joined in. And we all followed!<\/p>\n

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Japan-Guide does note that there have been complaints of late about photographers ruthlessly paparazzing maikos and geishas. But this particular practitioner seemed to take it in quite good stride, and she seemed unfazed by the attention. Or maybe she\u2019s used to it? In any case, the crowd respectfully made way for her as she darted from one guest house into another, and the following crowd dispersed after that.<\/p>\n

Matt observed that this must be how the Kardashians<\/span> feel, and quipped that this (our following this crowd) is the dumbest thing he\u2019s done in a while, and I kinda agreed LOL.<\/p>\n

We next returned to Gion Kinana<\/strong> as the wife wanted to sample their popular ice creams again. And so we did: those extremely overpriced desserts, with parfaits that cost \u00a51,500 and a tray of three small ice-cream scoops costing \u00a51,100. And every patron must order something. And like our 2010 visit, the young lasses serving us could not speak English today – the wife mused that clearly, some things still haven\u2019t improved since that time haha.<\/p>\n

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The wife beckons, and the husband groans.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\u00a51,500 ice-cream parfaits. Ouch.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Where Gion Kinana is.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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That’s it for a wrap for the first six days of our 15-day trip to Kansai. Time for us to pack our bags, as we’d be catching the 8:09AM morning train to Kanazawa for our next segment!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 06 is our last full day in Kyoto before we continue on to the second segment of our 15-day trip. In our initial planning, we\u2019d listed several more places to visit on Day 06 – and the list included<\/p>\n

Read More Day 06 @ Kyoto – Gion<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[673],"class_list":["post-33089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traveling","tag-kansai-japan-2022","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/blog-2022-japan-kansai-day-06-20221216_123257-kyoto.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33089","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=33089"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38383,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33089\/revisions\/38383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}