Day 4-14/12 Kyoto - Ninnenzaka, Sannenzaka, Kiyomizudera

We headed out to Ninnenzaka, Sannenzaka - these are stone-paved lanes lined with shops in traditional buildings which lead right up to the Kiyomizudera temple.  It was drizzling.

Ninnenzaka

Still Ninnenzaka. Actually Sannenzaka looks the same

The shops were nice to look at, selling merchandise at tourist prices. 

Peter Rabbit shop

Ghibli shop

Giant vegetables - in Japan we pretty much saw only cabbage served

Hubby started feeling the cold and wanted a pit-stop.  I was however keen to push on as it was already past 4pm and it gets dark at 5pm.  Told him we could stop at the shops later, after the temple.

Finally, arrived!  

At the entrance to Kiyomizudera

We walked around but didn't go inside the temple proper.

Part of the temple

After the temple, we started going to the shops.  Hubby tried out ice-cream from 2 shops...

Green tea ice-cream

There were cucumbers on a stick.  Who would want to buy a 300yen/RM9 cucumber on a stick?

Cucumber, just cucumber

Oh apparently these cucumbers were on JE's list to try.  

I have a cucumber!

Tasted ok, crunchy and only-slightly-pickled unlike a dill pickle.

Crunchy

And then.... we met up with my brother's family.  They started out in Tokyo, we in Osaka and our schedules overlap in Kyoto.  :)

Two familiies here in Kyoto

There didn't seem to be many restaurants.  Found this one below ground which had this table shown below, another 5 seats at the counter, and that was about it.

Play phone while waiting

After dinner we walked to the nearby Tatsumi bridge famous from Memoirs of a Geisha.  It was too dark for good pictures though.  We headed back to the hotel, tired and cold.  

Trip planner mode: Achieved a lot today!  I wasn't sure hubby would agree to walking that much.  Glad to have made it to all these places.