This morning started off like many others, we went downstairs and checked our emails and the weather. I found out my best buddy Tom has pancreatis; Supposedly it’s two months off if they take it out so he should be better by the time we get home. After that we headed out to some more temples in the south east of the city. First we went to Fushimi Inari-Taisha Shrine, which has thousands of torii (wooden gates) covering a very long walking trail around a mountain. Somehow we managed to find an exit about half way which took us to our second temple which was Tofukuji where we took some really amazing photos of the leaf’s turning colors. The whole morning was filled with a lot of walking as usual. Lunch was more sushi again, we found a really amazing place with great salmon and tempura ebi sashimi so we’ve been stocking up.

After lunch we headed off to the Gion section of the city which is know as the geisha area of Kyoto. We saw two walking around a corner in front of us and Carolyn took off like a bat out of hell to catch up to them and get their picture. She said there are only around 1000 of them left in all of Japan so it was a treat to see the real thing and get a few pictures. We also went up to Kodaiji Temple while we were in the area, It was pretty nice but 600 Yen to get in. Most of the temples are starting to look pretty similar to me so I think it will be the last one we pay to get into.

On our way back to the hotel we came across “the smallest ukiyo-e museum” across from the Kenoinji Temple. It’s only about the size of a small room and isn’t really a museum, just a shop where they sell woodblock prints but the owner was a very nice old man. He gave us a free Christmas card with the small prints we bought, so being the nice Canadians we are we gave him a small stuffed moose with a Canadian flag in return. He was so excited he ran back into his house to show us a small stuffed koala someone from Australia had given him as well, then he gave us a 5 yen coin in an ornate paper bag and said we would be friends forever. Something nice travelers from only the good countries of the world get to experience I’m sure… not to single any other countries out.

Mike