Kyoto

First the answer to the question about the device.  It is a clothes washing machine.  You put the few clothes in one round section for washing and then the other for spinning.  The hotel desk checks this out and you carry it to your room.  As for drying, we hung everything up over the tub.

On Tuesday we took the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto, a trip of about two and a half hours.  You hardly knew the train was moving unless you looked out the window.  After checking into our hotel we took a tour of Gion.  This is the entertainment district famous for the Gieshas who trained, lived and worked there. 

In the 1660s Gieshas  were introduced in five neighborhoods to provide entertainment with poetry, dance and drinking games.  They lived in the tea houses  They were not married and spent about five years in training.

Although the hair styles were prescribed, it was not generally their actual hair.They wore wigs.

These signs show the names of girls who lived here.

This wooden house was for Gieshas in-training.

Kasaka-jinga Shrine opened in 656 AD as a shrine to ward off epidemics.

 

 We walked past a woodworker’s shop who was making lotus flowers for the temple.  The carving was beautiful.

At Yasui-Konpiragu Shrine, dating back to the seventh century, white pieces of paper bore fortunes for worshippers.  Good fortunes were glued onto the rock.  If they drew a bad fortune, they crawled thru this hole and crawled back again. They then hung it on a rack for forgiveness. 

One of our tour mates decided to give it a try.

This red ball hanging outside of a house is for good luck.

The roof of this building held three monkeys, “hear, speak, see no evil.”

This pagoda was burnt in 1408 to stop the fighting between the Buddhist and Shinto sects.

This tree branch is trimmed to grow to support the roof.

 Lanterns hanging in the Yasaka Shrine are placed by businesses to thank the dieties for their success (businesses such as Natural Beauty, the only one written in English)