We arrived and made our way to our Christmas hideaway. The hotel Citadenes is on one of the main roads of Kyoto; three lines of traffic alternately fly or crawl by in each direction. However, as soon as you walk through the sliding wooden doors you're far away from everything. A long stone floored entrance way leads you past a Japanese garden to the darkly lit, stylish lobby. Think chequerboard floor and feature lighting. Our room on the fourth floor had a covered balcony from which you could survey the city but as soon as you closed the door the traffic noise disappeared.
We set out to explore our location and walked until we came to the river. We discovered we could stroll through restaurant populated old streets into the centre of Gion, which holds famous temples, new shops, beautiful winding old streets, a lot of dodgy bars and of course the odd glimpse of a Maiko.
That night we ate in an Italian with a proper pizza oven and strolled around Gion drinking in the festive Christmas eve spirit.
Christmas day started with champagne, presents and breakfast.
We walked to Kiyomizudera temple and enjoyed the grounds stopping for a hot bowl of noodles and an amusing cross-examination by the owner of the restaurant.
We also saw the amazing Samurai dog.
We ate Thai for lunch as it has become a kind of Tay-frad tradition. The restaurant overlooked the river.
We ate dinner in Gion at a kind of Italian Tapas place which was amazing. Pudding was christmas cake back at the hotel.
Boxing day started with snow!
We visited a Zen temple; my favourite kind as they always have beautiful gardens. They had installed a new piece of artwork in 2004 which was two dragons on Washi paper on the ceiling.
We took the bus home at 4.30 after stocking up on snacks. It took a good four hours as we got caught in a blizzard on the motorway. We enjoyed the snow when we stopped at the service station and returned to a thoroughly white Seki.
Merry Christmas and have a very Happy new Year.
Love Jo xxx
