Geisha Travel Package
11/24/2005 @ 6:00 pm
My ever reliable travel agency, IACE, has put together a “Geisha Walking Tour,” no doubt to capitalize on the product tie in momentum behind the movie Memoirs of a Geisha. The package includes:
Round-trip airfare between your city and Japan
Transportation in Japan
12 Meals
A bilingual guide
Admission fees for temples, museums and other facilities
The cost seems to be roughly around $3000, depending on your city of departure.
Or, you could just find yourself a girlfriend or boyfriend who speaks Japanese, get a rock bottom price ticket from IACE (which is what I try to do), stay in the Kyoto youth hostel, take your camera to Gion and Pontocho, and save yourself a ton of money.
A friend of mine in Tokyo, Seiichi Fukui, a Japanese man who teaches at a local university there, wrote to me today about the “Geisha” movie:
”The Geisha movie seems to be a little strange, not only because the geishas speak English. Though the narration indicates it’s a story in Kyoto, every small detail in the movie trailer I saw(the hairstyles, the clothes, the streets, the manner of the people, buildings, etc.) doesn’t look Japanese. In Kyoto, things go differently.”
Maybe because the movie was shot in a faux-Kyoto location village in southern California? But who will really notice? Just 125 million Japanese people.
November 24th, 2005 at 7:05 pmIf you’re already in Kyoto, you can take one of Peter MacIntosh’s Kyoto Sights and Nights tours. I have wanted to go on the second VIP tour, “A Walking Lecture Through Kyoto’s geisha quarters plus a Traditional Geisha Party (ozasshiki) in an Teahouse (ochaya)”, since I first heard about it.
November 24th, 2005 at 11:37 pmYeah I’ve seen Peter doing his tours through Kyoto, and they look pretty good. Take advantage if you can.
November 25th, 2005 at 4:38 amWhat’s IACE? Speaking of cheap travel, I don’t suppose any of you ever tried the air courier thing? Just wondering how that is..
Happy T-giving!!
November 25th, 2005 at 9:44 amOops, that was me. ^
November 25th, 2005 at 9:46 amhttp://news.inq7.net/lifestyle/index.php?index=1&story_id=57860
nice article here about modern day geisha
November 27th, 2005 at 2:16 pmBy the way, the above article says geisha means “arts people” in Japanese. But is this not just a euphemism for paid sex worker? According to bloggers in China, there are three Chinese words for geisha: 1 is i-ya, which is first level and means hooker; 2 is i-ya-dan which is higher level of girl and means dancer/hooker and 3 is just i-dan which means dancer/artist no sex please we’re high-class geisha already taken, smirk smirk. Any truth to this?
November 27th, 2005 at 2:18 pm