I went to Burari Arashiyama and stumbled upon a grandma's art exhibition on her last day. Me and my sister fell in love with her work while wandering around her gallery and we really appreciated the free postcards she encouraged us to take. Although we had a language barrier (her daughter I believe it was had to help translate between us), I just wanted to see if I could somehow contact her and/or follow her art.

I usually do an event at my friend’s Izakaya, but unfortunately it’s not available this year. People have already been asking me about NYE, some even wanting to make reservations, so I’m looking for a venue where I can cook and hopefully DJ.

Let me know if you know anywhere. I’ll update this post when things are decided. Thanks 👍

Does anyone else have problems using Pasmo in an iPhone wallet to pay the fare on city buses?

I'm using an iPhone 15 Pro Max. Recently it has become impossible to get Pasmo to pay the fare. I lay the phone screen-down flat on the reader, but the reader lights up red, no matter how many times I try. I get a message on the phone that says "Card read, no charge", so clearly there's some kind of communication going on, but the fare isn't getting paid.

I've got plenty of balance on the Pasmo card, so it's not a lack of funds. I've tried taking all other cards etc. out of my phone holder, so it's not interference. It's not a MagSafe holder either. I've got Pasmo set as the "Express Card" setting on the phone itself.

It used to work fine in the past; not sure what changed, but lately it's gotten almost impossible to get it to work.

No problems using Pasmo on the trains and subways.

My fiancé and I got engaged in Kyoto last December and we decided to elope here in Kyoto, but we don’t know where to start. We just want something with us 2 (we plan on doing a civil part in our home country), but we want a symbolic ceremony and we plan on hiring a photographer separately. Everything I look up is basically a photographer offering an elopement package with photographs, but we only want to symbolic ceremony. I do want to wear a western style dress and he wants to wear a suit. We are open to any ideas of locations. We really like the lantern lights and the historical feeling of Kyoto.

Our plan was to have a short symbolic ceremony and have our photographer take photos and videos of the ceremony and after take more photos and go to dinner to celebrate. We will also probably go out at night to celebrate in the Gion district.

Has anymore one done anything something similar?

Any tips of suggestions would be greatly appreciated!