I must have been exhausted from the previous day because I slept until 5:30 a.m. After breakfast I Skyped my mom to say Happy Birthday and then I spent the morning exploring Kyoto Station with my mother in law. While we were there I went ahead and purchased my Shinkansen tickets for the next day's travel back to Tokyo. I chose the 11:06 a.m. train because it wasn't too early (rush hour) or too late in the afternoon. Plus I was trying to time my arrival at Tokyo Bay with Thomas' arrival at Tokyo Bay. My mother in law and I decided to take all of the escalators all the way to the top of Kyoto Station....doesn't sound like a major accomplishment but if you could see just how high up you end up going you'd see that it was a challenge! After my mother in law and I explored Kyoto Station she went back to the hotel to meet up with my father in law who had spent the morning relaxing at a spa located inside Kyoto Station and getting a massage. I continued to shop around the station and then I headed over to the Aeon Mall across the street and had lunch over at Tony Roma's (I LOVED the cobb salad there) and then I went to the Daiso store to pick up a few more souvenirs to bring back home.
At 3:30 we all met up in the hotel lobby and then took a taxi to Gion to go to the private tea ceremony we had made a reservation for at EN tea house. We got lost! The taxi driver had no idea where we/he was going. He ended up leaving us in front of some shops and basically said "I think we passed it you need to walk back in the other direction" OK??...so, we started walking around trying to figure out the map we had. We finally found En (we were late) and it was an amazing experience. So peaceful and relaxing. It was interesting to see just how in depth the tea ceremony is. A lovely young lady demonstrated the tea preparation and then we all learned how to do it and then drink the tea. I also had a sweet that I loved -only to find out it was made of sea weed! It was really yummy! If I could have found some of those to bring back home I would have, but I never did see them anyplace to purchase.
After the tea ceremony we had some time to walk around on our way to Gion Corner. Of course we came across some more temples and shrines! Then at Gion Corner we arrived about 45 -50 minutes before show time. This is first come first serve for nightly tickets to this show. Luckily there were only about 13 people ahead of us on the ticket line. We were seated center stage about 3 rows back! They do about 10 minutes of different Japanese art forms: flower arranging, music, acting, kabuki, puppets and of course the show stopper - the beautiful Maiko's! Even though the play was in Japanese the program gave a synopsis of the story and after reading it you could actually follow along and it was a comedy - and the actors were fantastic. Physical comedy is universal. It was really a great experience. The tickets were only 2500 Yen. The show was well worth the price of admission.
After the show we walked around a little bit and then we took a taxi back to our hotel. I went to the conbini at the station to find something to eat because we hadn't had dinner -- I ended up with crackers and yogurt (go figure) but, I ran into Noreen and we talked about how we each had spent our day. She had done the optional tour to Nara and she really enjoyed it. She showed me the photos that she took of the gigantic Buddha and of the deer that freely roamed Nara park (and ate her purse).
I went back to the room to pack because the next morning I was leaving for Tokyo!
Here's the only photo that I took of our Kyoto hotel - I took while crossing the street from the station back to the hotel.
Next post can be found HERE - Day 10 -Tokyo Bay
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