Ni jo no-no

My mother and Aunt actually arrived here a little earlier than I saw them. They had about 6 days worth of tours between Tokyo and Kyoto through JTB tour. I chatted with them on the first day and then unsuccessfully tried to call them at their hotels for the last 4 days of their tour. On the day before meeting with them, I was getting worried when I tried to call the hotel in Kyoto at 8 pm and they hadn't checked in yet. I needed to talk to them as I was meeting them in Kyoto in order to guide them back to Hamamatsu on the regular train ( I had a discount ticket the seishun juuhachi kippu that gave me 5 day passes for 8000 yen- this year was a special price!). Well I did some detective work after a while and found that their tour that day would have them arriving late in Kyoto. My wife left a message for them at check in and we finally got in contact.
At the last minute I decided that it might be a good idea for me to track down a hotel to stay in and I found the mitsui garden hotel shijo. The hotel was a little more than I wanted to pay, but comfortable and conveniently located. I arrived a bit early after stopping off in Nagoya and visiting my pals in the Nagoya office for the company I work for, Time/Life Zenken- so I tried to go site seeing nearby and picked Nijo-jo to visit.
To my chagrin after taking the two or three pictures I could from across the way, I found out the castle closed at 4 o'clock! I had just checked in at 4- oh well, a future visit I suppose. Instead I wondered the popular shopping district around Karasuma/Shijo and was impressed with how many shops there were.
Finally it was about 6 o'clock and I found my way to the Nikko Princess hotel where Cathy and Liz were staying.
The ladies both were a bit tired after a hectic schedule of touring, but after a quick freshen up were ready to find some dinner.
My mom-
Aunt Liz...
We headed back to Shijo and found a restaurant/izakaya called Kyoto dining (or something like that)- and had a surprisingly delicious dinner- but no, we didn't eat tofu there!
The first day was brief but a good and interesting start to the ladies visit with us!