Day 14 - Kyoto

We slept in a bit this morning and after breakfast hit the road to the famous temple with thousands of orange gates called Fushimi Inari.  We were also not the only people with that same idea...apparently millions of people visit the shrines in this area between Dec. 31st and Jan. 3rd, so we joined in the shuffling again :)

Map of the temple

Andrew's black and white art shot :)

Front gate

Another massive crowd

Fox's guard the temple

Just in the knick of time, we left the temple and caught a train back to Gion for lunch and it started snowing!  It was really beautiful.  And cold:

We walked for quite a while in the snow from lunch back to our hotel, but then grabbed our bags and hopped in a cab to our new hotel for the next two nights - a traditional ryokan in Gion.  The place is magical - the rooms are lined with tatami mats and have wooden and paper windows!  It's really gorgeous and I promise to post more photos tomorrow, when the light is better for them.  For now, here's the front door, the entry way into the greeting area and our afternoon tea:

Tamahan Ryokan

Entry

Tea time!

Before heading out for dinner, we jumped in the onsen (traditional bath) to warm up.  (I'll post a pic of the cedar tub later.)  Dinner was a kaiseki meal at Gion Nanba.  Kaiseki is a traditional Kyoto-style meal of several small dishes, beautifully prepared:

The walk to dinner was still snowy and I thought this was reminiscent of the
bug swarm photo from Ubud (we've come full circle)

First kaiseki dish served in a porcelain crane

Stuffed once again, we walked back home and were greeted by the addition of beds to our room (previously there was just a table):

Tomorrow is our last full day in Kyoto, so we're going to try to make the best of it!!!