Today we had the best sushi so far. We aren’t even sure what we had and it was still my favorite! One of the pieces had what looked like grated cheese on top – it definitely wasn’t a diary product, but we still aren’t sure what it was. Some of it was boxed sushi, which we think is Kyoto-style.
We were heading to a tea shop next when we spotted a good looking tree down a small alley off a busy commercial road. We detoured and found a huge temple, with two monks playing the drums and one chanting. I popped my head in there to watch, and it was very surreal and cool, but then I realized others were not watching, but worshipping, so I left.
We went to an old timey tea shop for an afternoon treat – green tea and a Japanese sweet! It looked kind of like a pharmacy – the workers were in white lab coats, and the shop still had wooden boxes and clay jars with tea stored in them. They brought John’s tea and then taught him how to make it – pour it from one cup to another four times (in four different cups), then set the timer for 90 secs and steep, then enjoy. But only 60 seconds for the second cup, since it’s already hot. I got matcha, which they did not let me make! Must be complicated.
Next we headed to Gion to go geisha-hunting (it’s a thing!). Gion is one of the most active modern geisha districts. There were a ton of people doing the same thing we were doing – so picture a crowd of people trying to play it cool but still peeking their heads around corners and whipping their heads around any time a taxi stopped. A pretty funny phenomenon, plus it made me feel less weird about looking for women who were just going to work. They are basically professional party hostesses, not prostitutes like I kind of thought (sorry). We didn’t see any geisha, though. The area had small streets, old buildings and was very hushed, so it was still a cool area to see.
For dinner, we had ramen that was smoker then before – quite tasty but very rich.
Meredith R. Allen 
great post