Day 7 in Kyoto - afternoon

After spending time admiring the marvellous wooden Kiyomizu-deru temple, we headed back down the hill, had lunch and then headed towards the Gion district. On our way we were stopped by a group of school girls who were on their third year (high school) graduation excursion. Each one had a question for us in English which we did our best to answer. Hopefully we helped their English along a little bit - we did discover that they were visiting from Tokyo.

After this enjoyable encounter, we visited the Yasaka Shrine.

This Sinto shrine was established in 656 and was originally called the Gion Shrine. It's deities are beloved to protect from illness. This was probably the noisiest temple as supplicants rang huge bells to attract the attention of the resident Kami.

From here we headed back across the river to Nishiki Market, to Aritsugu in particular.







Whilst we couldn't work out exactly which knife Andrew wanted (from the hundreds on display) Geoff decided to purchase a knife. (actually Andrew very strongly encouaged this as Aritsugu are regarded as the best knives available in the world and they are only available from this one shop in Kyoto).














Before the purchase was wrapped it was further sharpened and the owner's initials inscribed on the hilt!!