Downtown

Yesterday I met a friend of one of my senpai (a person in the class above you) and we went looking around downtown. First we walked over the Kamo river to the Shimogamo Shrine, a Shinto shrine that has been around since before the Heian period. It was a special day when you could pay extra to go and look around a part that's normally closed to the public. We... decided the shrine was nice enough without seeing a special room, but it was still really fun. Rumi showed me how to wash your hands before going into a shrine, and read the signs for me (because the Japanese was kind of tricky)


Then we had lunch by the river, where it was nice and cool (and not flooded any more) and I found some ready-made bubble tea in the convenience store!
 
After that we went along to the Yasaka Shrine through Gion. It was busy because today was a public holiday, so everyone seemed to be out and about having fun. They were a lot of people in kimonos, but I still don't know why everyone was dressed up.
 

Today was fantastic too, though sadly I don't have pictures. Someone at the dorms knows a real onsen not too far from here (10/15 minutes by bike) so we all went at about 9pm. It was like a spa! They have therepeutic pools, a sauna with a tv, and an outside onsen, where you can look at the stars. Even better, we all bought membership cards (for 100 yen), so now if we go on a Monday and show our membership and our student ID, we get in for 500 yen. That's about £4.50. I.e., it's awesome ~