Planes! Trains! And automobiles! But mostly trains.

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We left our Ryokan this morning.

Those are the tiny stairs leading up to our room, I didn't get any pictures of the room, and the outside of the place on its tiny little street.

We headed to our AirBnB, which is closer to the rail station, but on the other side. Dumping our bags we headed to the Kyoto Rail museum.

The museum opened in April, it is brand new, and pretty great. It was fill little kids, because people love trains, especially in a country that actually uses them. There were also a not insignificant number of kids/young adults in wheelchairs and with other disabilities, in itself isn't surprising, because, everyone loves trains, I mention it because it was the first place in Japan that had true handicap access. It was nice to see such an old and traditional county make attractions accessible everybody.

Anyways the museum is totally worth the 1200yen per person. They have a bunch of locomotives and passenger cars on display outside.

And then inside they have more engines/passenger cars on display, with ramps and walkways giving you better views.

That's one of the first steam engines produced entirely in Japan. In the up until the very early 1900s Japan was importing their steam engines as they didn't have the expertise to build them, most came from the United States. Japan went from never having seen a train in the 1860s to building their own steam locomotives and over 5000 miles of track by 1906.

The other picture is one of the new ultra modern high speed rail cars. Capable of 200kmh. One thing I never really thought about with electric trains is the potential capacity, especially for passengers. Because every car has motors on it, which is how they go so fast, and they can chain as many together as needed without eating up hundreds of feet with locomotives. Also the front cars are very much like in airplane, in that the conductor/engineer sit in cockpit, with passengers behind them, on This same car.

They also allowed you to walk under a diesel and an electric engine. And of course being a museum mostly for children there were lots buttons to press.

They had an elaborate model city with all kinds of trains running through it, and a 15 minute show with narration, following various trains through the model city that we skipped out on, cause there were too many kids in there.

Outside there was a stream locomotive maintenance facility.

Also the 60 ton crane used to lift the locomotives.

After the museum we got some quick food and checked into the AirBnB to figure out what to do next.

Almost all the shrines, which are effectively the parks in Kyoto close at 1630-1700 which is when most people go back to their hotel for early dinner, and watch crazy Japanese TV and go to sleep early.

We wanted more than gameshows (Also we don't have a TV). I found the Yasaka shrine.

It's near Gion, which I'll get to in a second, so an area we haven't been to, is open all night, and renown for its lights.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasaka_Shrine

The shrine is 1400 years old, with nasty additions in the intervening centuries. It was pretty cool.

All those lamps have the names of businesses that donate money to the shrine. Basically it's a giant ancient advertisement, with some faith thrown in.

From here we wandered into Gion. The main street.

Had a bunch of modern and tourist oriented stores and restaurants, the side streets had all the machiya and ochaya, inns and tea houses. It is in these inns and tea houses that the geisha, or more accurately geiko entertain the travelers and in MKE modern times businessmen.

The streets were very narrow and very old, with the occasional geiko outside, and tufts of drunk Japanese businessmen.

As you got closer to the river, you saw more modern bars and the hostess clubs, which are modern geisha places, where the hostess can get a bonus for repeat costumers. As I can imagine these hostesses have to work pretty hard to earn these bonuses.

And then across the river is thy bar/club district for young people. Here we saw drink girls puking and passed out in the streets, with their friendss laughing and smoking and dragging them to the canal so they can puke in the water.

We got shwarma, it was an interesting experience, there was no one around that seemed to be from the land of "meat tornadoes" as my good greek friend would say. the little restaurant, and more importantly cooking aparatus was manned by a large Japenese young guy, i mean, this guy knew how to eat. He layered the meat and cabbage and onions and sauce in the pita just right, so you always had the full maelstrom of flavors in your mouth in every bite.

We ate while people watching, and trained home.