Tommy Lee Jones shills Suntory Boss products... like a boss.
Side note: I became addicted to vending machine coffee while in Japan. First off, I'm addicted to coffee anyway. Also I'm a snob. Second, as Americans we hear "vending machine coffee" and instantly feel the urge to vomit. But no. Japanese vending machine coffee is the stuff dreams are made of. It's a can of coffee that can either be hot or cold - that's right, the vending machine will provide it hot or cold to your caffeine craving little hands - and is available in many varieties. I particularly liked the Suntory Cafe au Lait that was available on just about every other street corner. My only regret now is that I did not ditch all of my clothes and just pack my suitcase full of Suntory on the way home. Back to the trip report!
Gion is one of the more popular tourist areas of Kyoto. If you're looking for a Geisha encounter, this is likely where you'll have one. Also, this part of the city is heavy on cherry trees, and we found ourselves on several jaw dropping streets, like this one.
Walking to and through the area, you really get a feel of "old" Kyoto. There are little winding streets and alleyways, it seems like just about everything ends in a temple. I was very pleased to find several streets covered in red lamps, too.
At the top of the Gion district is another temple, and it was running some kind of night market while we were there. It was packed full of people, with lots of different stalls selling all kinds of items. We didn't linger long, but kept walking.
A view of the main street in Gion from the temple steps.
My first stop on the main street was, well, it was Starbucks. I'm sorry I'm sorry! But sometimes I just need the vanilla latte I know and love. Also, I like going into Starbucks in other countries to see how they're different or the same. There were definitely a few items here that were different, but I didn't get any pictures unfortunately. The young man who rang us up was very excited to practice his English with us, but lamented that he still had a hard time saying "vanilla" as there is no "L" sound in Japanese. He was, however, extremely proud of his ability to say McDonalds. It was a delightfully adorable conversation, and when we walked away Adam pointed out that I must just have one of those faces that says "Talk to me! I'm friendly!" as no matter what country we're in, I always end up making friends with strangers.
We stopped by the Geisha theater to see if we thought it would be a good idea, but decided against getting into the show. In retrospect, I wish we had as we never did encounter any Geisha or Maiko while we were there. I guess there are people who will stake out Gion for hours and essentially stalk Geisha houses, but it felt just too creepy to me. Not to mention, if you see a Geisha on her way somewhere, she's ON HER WAY SOMEWHERE. She has a job to keep and doesn't really have time for your tourist paparazzi business. Ok, rant over.
Not the best picture of the theater, sorry.
It was getting to be dinner time, and we had read about a great tempura place in one of our guidebooks. We had also read to be careful when approaching restaurants in Kyoto in particular. It is perfectly acceptable for restaurants there to decide what clientele they do and do not want, and that may include not wanting any foreign visitors. From what we had read, if it's in a guidebook or has an English menu posted outside, it's probably a safe bet. If you approach a restaurant and are told they're "full" even though you can clearly see they are not, it's a nice way of them telling you to get lost. Which is exactly what happened when we found the tempura place. It was a huge let-down, as the guidebook had sold it very well and it was a really long walk to get there, but we picked ourselves up and started looking for alternatives.
We settled on an izakaya called Bamboo, which turned out to be awesome. They put us back in a semi-private room and had some of the most attentive service I've ever experienced. By the end of the meal, I was glad our guidebook had been wrong!
Our semi-private room at Bamboo
After that, we were starting to really feel the exhaustion, so it was off to bed!
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