We had a big lie in this morning before grabbing a quick brunch and setting off for a wander around Kyoto. 

We found a few cute shops, one where we saw them making rock by hand and lots of cute little boutique shops selling origami papers and charms. I bought a pair of earrings made out of origami cranes. In between the shops we found a small shrine dedicated to the god of eyesight. Part of Buddhism blessings is to pour bamboo scoopful of water over a statue of the god to bless them and ask for good fortune. As I have pretty bad eyesight myself, I blessed him a lot.

We then went to a Buddhist temple and found incredible gardens and artwork. On entering the temple, there were gardeners trimming the trees with a pair of scissors, cutting off small pieces bit by bit. And on the floor was another gardener picking up each pine needle and fallen maple leaf one at a time. The precision, concentration and patience was outstanding. The gardens were beautiful for it though and most impressively was the way they were raked with precision and kept so beautifully peaceful and calm. 

We then climbed up the hill to another temple on the mountain side. It was busy and full of people and it almost felt like a village fayre was happening. There were lots of little things you could do to find your fortune. One where you shake a box of sticks and see which comes out and another where you have to walk between one rock and another with your eyes closed. If you can do so, then you will have good fortune in love. Needless to say, I gave it a go! 

Around the temple were scattered lots of little stone carvings of people with clothing put on them. To my understanding, the small rocks made to look like people represent children. The clothing put on them, mostly aprons and hats are there to keep them warm. People put these clothes onto the statues when they have had a miscarriage, still birth or a young child dies. 

We had to rush down from the temple and catch a taxi to get to our tea ceremony. We went down a small alley and into a little place where we were greeted into a small room which had a tokonoma in the corner and a hole in the floor where an iron “kettle” was being heated. A tokonoma is probably best described as an alcove in English and will always have some kind of hanging scroll and flower arrangement. It is there for artistic expression and should never be used as a storage facility. When joining a formal tea ceremony, you should enter the room and appreciate the artwork in the tokonoma before sitting down. 

We sat in the room on carpets on the floor and the lady dressed in a kimono explained to us about tea ceremonies. Traditionally it was mainly for the powerful men such as samurais who would practice a tea ceremony but now it is more commonly women. It is a place to share together and to be friends and never for business or negativity. When you are invited to a tea ceremony, you must always bring a fan which is placed in front of you when you kneel and you bow as a sign of thanks and respect. You must also bring a small cutting knife to cut the sweets your guest will offer you and a piece of paper which will be used to place your sweets on and also to wipe the bowl after you have drink from it and before you pass it to the next person. 
We learnt the methodical process to making tea. In all of Japan, it is important to be pure and clean so first you must purify everything in the room and all your utensils. And then you make your tea, extremely precisely, which I won’t go through but make sure you whisk your matcha thoroughly until it has a froth! We drank our tea, ate our sweets and learnt a lot. 

After the tea ceremony, we went in search of a restaurant, we found one which looked as though you could cook at your table. It turned out the chef cooked it for you and it was put onto the heated table in front of you. It was amazing! Such wonderful food and it was fun to see it all sizzling in front of us and taste the changes in flavours as the dish cooked more. 

After dinner we weren’t quite ready for bed and we also needed something sweet so we decided to kill two birds with one stone and head to some Karaoke! We paid about £25 for 2 hours, all you can drink, eat and sing karaoke! So we loaded up on ice cream and snacks and placed an order for enough drinks for 10 people (there’s 6 of us!). We had our own little room and room service so the drinks kept on coming and we sufficiently had our money’s worth.

The karaoke was hilarious and we only sang the first minute of each song or the chorus, whichever came first. Apparently this is a trick of the Japanese to make sure you can get your money’s worth! By the time our 2 hours were up, we were adequately inebriated and we wander home to bed ready for an early morning.