Geisha, Gardens and...Astro Boy!

Kyoto is best enjoyed at a leisurely pace and with your eyes wide open.  For it is only then that you can truly see the beauty that resides behind closed doors. Away from the traffic and bustle of central Kyoto, and make no mistake, this is a big, working city, lies gardens beyond imagine and quite often beyond entry unless pre-arranged.  I was however, remarkably fortunate to experience a couple of Kyoto's most private and as it turned out, not so private, private gardens.  Some I had arranged and some I, well, literally gate crashed.  But before you cry foul, it all ended well.  After respectfully observing that I was not in a public reserve and with much blushing and bowing on my behalf, my reluctant hosts gave me a grand tour of the finer points of their creations with far more politeness than I surely deserved.  Unfortunately, twice today I have found myself in this embarrassing but, at it turned out, very fortunate position.  One was even being used as a backdrop for a documentary on Geisha!  The graciousness and kindness of the Japanese people can not be faulted, thank goodness, even in what must be for them, absolutely withering circumstances such as this.  Calling a day on any semblance of the leisurely pace at which I began my site seeing, I have made a hasty retreat to a small, cosy establishment not all that far from a homage to my favourite cartoon character, Astro Boy, to enjoy a well earned and refreshing Premium Yebisu All Malt Beer.  This beer has a full malt taste, quite different to the usual Japanese beer and well worth asking for.