Real Maiko
In my last entry on the topic I noted that I didn’t know if all of the Maiko dashing about Kyoto were real or not. In the afternoon there were many in the Gion neighborhood, but most were probably just regular people who got dressed up and made up to look like Maiko.
At night we saw the above, real Maiko dash from her okiya to an ochaya so I’m quite confident she wasn’t just some tourist who paid to look the part. You can tell the difference between a Geisha and a Maiko in a number of ways. Those include the hair (Maiko usually don’t have wigs and have more adornments in their hair), longer obi (going all the way to the armpits for Maiko), shoes, and red around the eyes (for Maiko).