So we arrived at Kyoto at about 6 in the morning.

Won't say we are refreshed la since it's still at some ungodly hour but pretty thankful we got to sleep. Popped by Kyoto station to freshen up where some of us helped ourselves to the public toilet in a hotel.

Kyoto was under the purview of yours truly and despite trying a few times to get the message across to Airbnb host about the possibility of checking in earlier or at least leaving luggage behind, there seemed to be language barrier so I wasn't sure if he meant ok or not - each time I asked he would send me a photo of luggage room and said we can store our luggage there while staying there. So wasn't sure if he meant that we can do that even when we haven't checked in. Not wanting to take risks we decided to just store luggage at lockers at Kyoto station.

Considering we are up early anyway so decided to make full use of the advantage and drop by Fushimi Inari Temple first! Wisest decision ever coz by the time we are leaving, the crowd of tourists had arrived whew. Btw our Airbnb is literally at the entrance of Fushimi Inari Village but yea because of  the uncertainties mentioned earlier we didn't drag our luggage along.

Wanted to find a cafe-ish place for breakfast but walked through the village and all the street food vendors have started operations so settled there!

To the old streets of Ninenzaka next! Got a bit lost on the way there trying to find the bus stop but got there in the end. Was kinda cold so in a bid to escape the cold, decided to drop by a cafe first for brunch. Idea was to share drinks but got caught by the minimum order policy (one item per person) oh well. Food was ok but left a sour taste in our mouth lol.

And it snowed on our way out! Wasn't sure if it was snowing actually, looked more like hail to me but later on the tea ceremony host told us "it was snowing this morning". Hmm. Which is kind of unusual at this time of the year apparently, being late winter.

Spent some time exploring the streets, considering we had some time to kill before our next item on agenda which is tea ceremony at 2pm. Very nice street and at least three quarters of the people were wearing kimonos. Which was one thing we considered but thought it was in a pricier end and while searching for free options (lol we are cheapo that way) we found an option in Osaka so we decided to leave that for Osaka instead. And it was really chilly that day so not sure how well we would have fared under the kimono actually. 

Split up for the tea ceremony! San and Kevin weren't keen on it so plan was they can continue to explore the area while waiting for us coz the session is only an hour long. Chose this place called Camelia coz we were going to be in this area anyway. Hostess apparently used to work for another place which was also pretty famous, then ventured out to open her own place. Methinks this is actually a very profitable business to be frank. Listened to the history and watched demonstration, but to us the more disappointing part was that we didn't get to try the whole process, only got to mix our own tea using matcha powder prepared in advance. Maybe to save time?

Walked over to Gion to meet up with the couple at Tsujiri for tea! Bit of queue but we got in within half an hour. 

Idea was to walk around Gion area to scout for dinner options and if we stayed on after sunset we may be able to catch geishas (real ones, not the models we saw earlier). KH and I kinda wanted to try kaiseki for dinner but they don't come cheap - like 10k ¥ per person so don't think the rest were keen on it. Plus chilly weather meant that it isn't conducive to walk around outdoors so change of plans, headed to Daimaru instead thinking we will settle dinner there instead. But also couldn't find anything substantial enough so ended up heading back to Kyoto station to have dinner and withdraw luggage. Katsu don for dinner after some time searching for a viable option and it was pretty meh.

With luggage in hand we headed back to Fushimi Inari to check in. Pretty decent size for us even though it's a bit old. Headed out again after checking in to convenience store to find breakfast items, and called it a day.