Now, let me switch to a different topic. If you watched the movie ‘Memoir of a Geisha’, you would probably know that Geisha's are trained in Kyoto and the apprentice Geisha is called Maiko (舞子). They are traditional female Japanese entertainers that still exist in Japan.
There were several occasions where we spotted Geisha's,
The very first time we spotted Geisha was at night at Gion (祇園) district – Kyoto traditional pleasure quarter, somewhere at Hanamikoji-dori (花见小路通) where all the ochaya or tea houses are concentrated. While strolling on Hanamikoji-dori, we could hear music and laughter’s from inside, but all the ochaya are very secluded and we almost see nothing inside. We saw some maiko or geisha walked pass us in the hurry like rushing for the next appointment, and also saw geisha with a male Japanese guy next to each other, may be this man is her danah? We didn’t take any pictures because it was dark and these geisha and maiko walked really fast.
When we were exploring Southern Higashimaya area, we spotted a couples of them, all the photos above were taken at Southern Higashimaya and they sometime come out in a group of 2 or 4. In reality how many of them are real ones? After all there are more or less 8000 of them in Japan. Furthermore there are a few institutions in Kyoto providing the service of re-making of Geisha or Maiko with the option of taking a stroll in the costumes. It is in fact the desire of many Japanese ladies to be able to dress up as Geisha and that's why all the 'Geisha' or 'Maiko' in the photo are not by professional but re-make.
Anyway, I still find them quite fascinating...
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