Travel: Kyoto Maiko

During Ameeta's and my trip to Japan last November, we spent a couple of days sightseeing in Kyoto. What we did not plan was to share this experience with the throng of Japanese who also decided to make Kyoto their sightseeing destination for an extended Japanese Labor Day weekend.

In any case, we started our touring on the eastern side of Kyoto, taking a bus out to Kiyomizu-dera. We were fortunate to have a beautiful, cool, fall day; the momiji (maple) leaves were prime for viewing, so we enjoyed strolling from one site to another in that area.

As we were climbing up to Kiyomizu-dera, we were surprised to find ourselves following two maiko maiko up the steps.

While it is not uncommon to see an occasional individual or small group of people (usually women) wearing traditional Japanese kimono walking around town, we had not seen anything like this before.

As the day progressed, we ran into several other pairs of maiko. They were happy to oblige having their picture taken with any number of tourists, Japanese and non-Japanese alike, but did not desire to interact or converse.

Wearing traditional Japanese geta, they walked very slowly. So we were surprised when we later saw (and tried to follow) another maiko, this time solo, perhaps running to work. Amazing how fast a person can navigate through a crowd of people wearing geta.