The Suzuki ladies made out a receipt for the wrong amount (I think I'll look at other options next year). At Tokyo Station, we got seats in the smoking car, the only free seats left, of a Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto, not stopping anywhere between this trip. The base of Fuji was visible but the top was in the clouds. Two guys in front of us couldn't breathe without a cigarette but the ventilation was pretty good. They got off at Toyama and it was pretty smoke free after that. We hiked to K's House and checked in and then headed out. because we were there too early.

We started by crossing the Kamogawa and finding a Ramen Shop that has become a tradition. The gyoza were still good. We headed toward Kiyomizudera past many tourist shops, and turned right down the steps into Gion and more tourist shops. There were a couple of Maiko-dressed Japanese that obviously weren't maiko but weren't models either. Maybe it's a new tourist gimmick. One was taking videos of herself as she walked along. We crossed Maruyama Park and headed to the big gate of Chion-in before walking up the steps to the temple itself. The guard of the taxi stand chased us off the steps for sitting down. so we sat on the steps of the taxi stand having some cold tea from the vending machine.

On the way down we passed through some other temple grounds until we stumbled upon an ukiyoe print maker's shop. He had Drew and Sarah make their own prints. I got a Tokuriki and a couple of gilded anonomous prints as souvenirs. Back at K's House, we merged into the gaijin polyglot where a group of Chinese made their own food every morning and night (like the Japanese carry their own pickles to the US), probably because they couldn't travel and try other culture's foods, and a variety of people from the US, England, and everyone hung out and told travel stories. Sartha had a message from her Osaka relatives so we decided to swap Sunday's and Monday's schedules so she could visit with her relatives.

Sunday - Sarah went with her relatives to Kinkakuji et al. tourist traps of Kyoto tour while Drew and I headed to Hikone for the castle and then to Sekigahara to see what was set up for the battlefield. First we headed to the open antique garage sale market at Toji where we didn't get anything as it seemed expensive. We caught the shinkansen to Maibara and backtracked by a local to Hikone. Hikone seemed almost deserted until we went inside the castle, where it was a never ending line waiting to go up stairs, down stairs and around corners. One area of the castle grounds were roped off with a "Beware of Bees" sign (hachi tyuui). The views were good but blocked by chicken wire which must have been put up to keep out pigeons or birds. It cut down on picture taking. Hiking down the other side we found the entrance to the Genraku Garden, a nice tea garden and pond next to the Ii's residence, Rakuraku-en, which isn't toured because it is still in private ownership. We caught a local back to Maibara, and got a Shirasagi headed for Nagoya in the hopes it would stop at Sekigahara. It didn't and we had to get off and backtrack 2 stops. The info counter was closed so we headed out on our own, and quickly found the museum of the battle next to Tokugawa's second HQ site. We walked the battlefield through farmer's fields and down country alleys past a house with junk in the yard and a Jaguar and Volvo in the driveway, past a head burial mound until we got back to the station and got a local back to Maibara. On the Shinkansen back to Kyoto we tried to get a pix of the white Statue of Liberty near Otsu that was giving a peace sign. We had okonomiyaki at this little restaurant where the lady server sometimes drank as much as the customers. She wasn't having as much tonight though.

Monday - everyone was tired from relatives or the long battlefield site so the day was abbreviated to a tour of just Uji and the Fushimi Inari Shrine. FIrst stop was the Byodo-in, another villa turned temple that is memorialized on the back of the 10-yen coin. It was undergoing renovation so most of the art work was now in an adjacent museum, including the two phoenixes that were on top. I took a picture of one and a lady comes running in yelling "syashin o torenai" and sees me and changes to "no photo!" I got the phoenix though. After exiting, we couldn't find anyplace to eat so we wandered across some bridges up to the Ujigami Shrine, the oldest in Japan. It didn't even look like a shrine. A tea museum looked more like a tea shop so we didn't go in. Caught a train back toward Kyoto getting off at Fushimi-Inari to take a look at the mountainside of torii. We were running out of energy so we didn't make the top and on the way down we spied this restaurant along a tourist strip that wasn't very good. Drew wanted to try the house specialty which looked like baby chickens on a stick. It turned out they were "suzume" not "susume" which are sparrows on a stick with crunchy heads. He said they tasted good. Back to K's House for some more gaijin chatter. I did laundry.