Kyoto by day, Kyoto by night

Leaving Japan in a few hours... :( It has really been a great trip.

By the way, love skype. Using it as a cell phone = brilliant. Totally using this for Mongolia!

I want to put a few pictures that I already put up on Flickr, but hasn't talked about already. On Friday after class, I went to Kyoto again, because I reaaaally wanted to see a geisha and the Fushimi shrine. This time I was alone, which I sometimes prefer because I can really do what I want and I don't have to wait for anyone.

Anyway, it only takes 20 minutes on the shinkansen, and I took another train down to the Fushimi Shrine. Have you ever seen Memoirs of a Geisha? (Book was better, but anyway) There's a scene with her as a young girl running through the red gates... and these are it!

(this one is my favorite) :)

I then took a trip down the Philosopher's Walk, which turned out to be hella long (once I actually found where it was!), so I only did half of it before heading down the the Gion district for dinner and geisha spotting. Lemme just say now I didn't see a geisha :( Or at least, I think I maybe saw the back of one. Oh well.

Yeah, NOW I see all the cats on my last weekend!

As I mentioned, I went down to the Gion district, but I walked around some more after dinner to one of the bridges near the canal that the lovers hang out on:

There was a dude doing drums down there, too, but I kinda cut him off for the sake of the picture :)

On Saturday, I spent the day shopping after finishing putting together my book and getting locked out of the room. :) I actually did not take a single picture that day (whoops, sorry Don!), so I have nothing to show! Ok, maybe I lie. I did take a couple cell phone pictures later in the day- we had a final group dinner at this really cool tofu restaurant. It was a 6 or 7 course meal, with tofu in each one... tofu soup, tempura tofu, tofu with a tomato on it, dessert tofu, etc etc, you get the idea! It was really tasty, once you get past the texture of it. We all had lots of drinks (loooove Japanese beer, why didn't I have it before?) and lots of fun. :) I'm going to miss them all! 

Next... Osaka aquarium (probably after I get back!) and final notes...