Nightlife is probably more interesting in the various teahouses and bars of this area. We also visited Gion, an area well known as a Geisha district, and while it seems to be more popular in the evening, it was fine to talk through when we did during the day. We continued to explore the area, and eventually returned to our hotel to refresh before going back out for a while. They had minimal English skills, but with a partial English menu and some hand gestures, we made it work. I’m not positive this is the place we were looking for, but it turned out well. I was trying to find recommendations using various social media. There is a large market where we were tempted by various fresh items, but somehow we settled on a sushi shop on a side street. There was a beautiful areas of natural trees, and even some views back towards the city.įrom here we walked back towards the city, eventually starting to get hungry for lunch.

Within the temple complex, there were various areas of old pagodas and shrines. We took a bus from the hotel to a stop at the base of this street, then made the walk up hill towards the temple. It is at the end of a long pedestrian street of mostly tourist-oriented shops. We started by visiting the Kiyumizu-Dera complex, part of the UNESCO World heritage site. Cool, but only a light jacket was needed while we were out exploring. The hotel seemed pretty busy, and some more prime tourist spots were busy, but I don’t think anyplace was particularly crowded. It is definitely a tourist (-y) place, and I doubt late December is prime season, but we were days from the New Years holiday, so I got the sense that there were other folks taking this time to visit as we did.

Scott chirashi