Anyway, after yesterday’s little adventures, I told myself I’d just be staying home all day today. It was too hot and I was tired and there are actually a bunch of homework and presentation and test prep work coming up for next week, and I think pretty much every week from now on, that I wanted to get a bit ahead of.

I went out in the morning anyway to get breakfast and some snacks from the nearby 7-Eleven. I ended up getting a few random instant noodle bowls for standby. I had the one on the left today.

I figured I would go out again and get dinner at some point and that would be it. However, people on the group Instagram chat started to send a couple of messages about the Shimogyoro Jinja festival, as it was basically right next to their hotel, and I was reminded at some point in there that I never did pick up the goshuin from that temple because I had arrived there after the office that dispensed them had closed (which happens at 5 pm). I did kind of want that. I also was tired of drafting my presentation at that point, since I was about a third through it. And the buses were “free” thanks to my bus pass…

So the next thing I knew, I found myself on a bus headed back to the Shimogoryo Temple anyway. The parade had one or two new stalls, but was otherwise pretty much exactly the same, except that the road next to the festival stalls, which the childrens’ floats had travelled upon last night, were open to traffic, and there were a lot less people at the festival overall. It would probably have gotten a lot busier for the finale though, but I didn’t stay for that.

I did collect my goshuin, except they weren’t doing handdrawn ones today due to the festival and so I had to settle for a pasted one. It cost 500 yen instead of the usual 300 yen but also came with two pieces of some sort of lucky sugar-based confectionery that I looked quizzically at once I got home, and then ate anyway after deciding that they, indeed, were edible.

I walked through the festival street the same way I did yesterday, north to south, and then caught the bus home from a bus stop near the southern point of the street. While heading west on the way home, the bus itself passed by a procession that was likely the adults’ float from yesterday, out by a bunch of festival extra stalls by the Mibudera Temple bus stop along Shijo Street. I had noticed a couple of festival stalls along this route yesterday on the way to Gion to the east, but there were only something like three stalls set up at the time — now there were 20 or so. Modest, but not huge, and they were likely the same sort of stalls as on the other street, so I didn’t stop.

I did take a couple pictures as the bus approached, and then passed, the small procession. There were about 20 children or so in front of the procession, as though helping pull it along in the sweltering heat, although my camera only caught the front couple of them.

I took the bus back to my usual stop, and then one more stop, before walking south from there to the Aeon Mall near my and Zian‘s place, Aeon Mall Kyoto Gojo. I walked around the mall from top to bottom while cooling down from the heat, peering at, among other things, a store that specifically catered to cooking classes.

Interesting. I went into several other stores but didn’t buy anything, until I went into the supermarket in the basement. There, I bought some things for tonight’s dinner and future dinners and a couple of snacks as well, before heading on home uneventfully.