More Onsen, and a Hippy Guest House!

Yesterday I met up with someone for a drink, and he showed me around the most traditional area of Kyoto, which was sooo interesting! He showed me the old Tea Ceremony houses, where the high class families used to live. In which many traditions are still kept. The houses are made entirely of wood, so buckets of water are kept outside so that if a fire starts inside the house a member of the household can quickly get water from outside to extinguish it. You will just have to turn your heads because I cant seem to turn this one around haha.

Later on I found a very nice, but very old guest house. It used to be a guest house 500 years ago and is now a hippy guest house for japanese backpackers. Everyone here is really kind and welcoming, even if I cannot speak japanese very well they still welcome me. At about 7pm last night I heard a sequential dongs of a bell or something outside. And they told me that it was someone walking down the street, and the ringing was telling the families in the houses to start to put out there fires. Because in those days they didnt have gas ovens that they can easily put out. This is very rare for someone to do this today but it was so good to see that some traditions are still kept.