Most visitors to Kyoto are here to enjoy the
temples, gardens and the historic sites but
you'll also find that downtown Kyoto is very
appealing.
It's a busy modern shopping area that features
a couple of major boulevards, several large
department stores and smaller pedestrian-only
streets, and there’s many blocks of boutiques
and restaurants, cafés and thousands of local
residents filling the sidewalks.
Downtown’s a great spot for people-watching
especially lively in the early evening when
the population has finished work and they're
out for a stroll in all their glory.
People-loving travelers always find it worthwhile
to delay dinner and catch the passing stream
of faces particularly on the busiest commercial
street of Shijo dori.
It was so interesting to enter this downtown
modern situation in contrast with the old-fashioned
peaceful gardens.
You might even see the elusive geisha as she
scurries to her next appointment.
These are well-trained ladies schooled in
the arts of conversation and culture, music
and dance performance.
We’ll see more in a moment.
Near the Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto you'll find
the most famous downtown historic neighborhood,
Gion, the neighborhood of the geisha or as
they say in Kyoto, the geiko.
And the little side streets are where you
want to venture to see the really charming
part of old Kyoto.
She is not a geisha but a waitress in a restaurant
in a traditional outfit and very soon we will
be seeing a few geisha, although in Kyoto
they’re called geiko, so actually in the
city there are no geisha, but for this program
we’ll refer to them as geisha because that’s
how they are widely known.
Gion is located between the Kamo River and
Yasaka Shrine, with Shijo dori and Hanamikoji
as the primary streets that you want to spend
some time at.
Here you find an architectural mix of simple
wooden buildings and historic structures.
Later in this segment we’ll also bring you
into the more modern downtown.
This is Hanamikoji, the main side street in
Gion where you're most likely to run into
some geisha.
Keep in mind you want to be polite and considerate
when you see a geisha.
Don't try and stop them and ask them to pose
for photos or selfies.
These are busy people.
They’re working they’re going from one
restaurant to another to meet their next party
and they really don't have time to stop for
every tourist and pose for pictures, but you
can certainly watch them walk by -- a classic
beauty of the geisha.
Gion is a very popular neighborhood for the
visitor to go take a stroll and find some
geisha and yes you will see them, with some
patience.
But more often what you're seeing are maiko,
which are apprentice geisha.
They look nearly identical to the geisha except
sometimes there is a red collar that gives
them away.
It takes several years of training for a maiko
to become a full-fledged geisha or again as
they're called in Kyoto, a geiko.
Notice how pleased the Japanese tourists are
to see these beauties.
It's unlikely you'll get into a club where
the authentic geisha work for it's very expensive,
and there is a language barrier and foreigners
are discouraged.
The teahouses in the neighborhood often only
allow in their regular customers or invited
guests.
Of course there are many excellent restaurants
in the neighborhood open to all serving fine
Japanese cuisine.
On this east side of downtown you can explore
fascinating narrow lanes lined with traditional
wooden facades of the historic Gion district,
especially along Hanami-koji street and adjacent
side lanes.
Be sure to walk a couple blocks north from
here to Shimbashi and there you will find
perhaps the most beautiful canal in all of
Kyoto.
Two blocks away from that busy modern street
you enter another world, stepping back to
a more quiet and peaceful time.
The canal only extends for about 100 meters
so it's very easy to stroll along it.
It's a pedestrian zone.
Walk from one end to the other and then return
the same way.
Charming little restaurants, some with outdoor
seating are lined up along the canal and there
are a few tiny hotels the ryokan.
It’s so peaceful there’s a heron just
sitting there in the canal, perhaps waiting
for his dinner to float by.
The light at twilight is really spectacular,
as you can see, so it's always a great idea
to postpone your dinner until it actually
gets dark and take advantage of the twilight.
It's a lovely hour in which you can be walking
around and enjoying the combination of the
fluorescent lights that have come on, the
shop lights, and the background illumination
up in the skies, and do a little shopping
perhaps.
You definitely want to explore as much as
you can as much as you have time and take
a wander wander in those little side streets,
both north and south of Shijo dori, which
is the main commercial street running through
Kyoto.
Here you’ll find some busy restaurants,
many of them with open shop fronts and quick
food to go.
This is Japanese fast food, high quality and
delicious.
You’ll be delighted by the reasonable prices,
too.
Shijo dori gets wider and busier as it reaches
the western end of Gion and prepares to head
right through the middle of downtown.
At this end of Gion you'll find the famous
Minamiza Theater for kabuki shows, the classical
Japanese dance and drama performances that
originated in the early 1600s and continue
right up through today.
This theater was actually founded here in
the year 1610.
The structure that we see today was rebuilt
in the old style back in 1929.
It has a festive appearance with the gabled
roof, turrets, lighting and big lanterns out
front.
It definitely attracts attention and the performances
today are sometimes geared for the visitor,
where there will be highlights of several
different kabuki shows presented in a two-hour
period.
We continue a couple blocks west across the
Kamo River to the busy intersection with Kawaramachi
dori, which is the real crossroads, the commercial
center of downtown modern Kyoto.
There are several big department stores here,
there is a real hustle and bustle, and ebb
and flow of lots of young people out shopping
in the evening.
The primary commercial street here is Shijo
dori and it's always very busy, full of shops
and pedestrians and there's a lot of cars,
a lot of traffic going by.
We’ll show you more of this in a few minutes,
including a covered shopping mall, but it’s
kind of nice to get away from the busy streets
and into the side lanes.
Be sure to also walk a few blocks north along
Kiyamachi to reach the charming little canal
that winds its way above and below Shijo-dori.
Quite similar to that lovely canal we saw
earlier running through Gion, this canal is
a little bit longer, a little wider and has
even more restaurants and attractive buildings
that make it very much worth walking along.
It's amazing how quickly the atmosphere changes
from the busy hustle bustle of downtown and
you step one block in to this quaint historic
district and it's like you're visiting Japan
of 200 years ago.
It's an important neighborhood that you certainly
don't want to miss.
This historic zone extends for several blocks
flanking the Kamo River, especially along
Pontocho dori, a pleasant and very famous
narrow pedestrian lane of more bars and restaurants.
You'll find some traditional shops tucked
away selling lacquerware and chopsticks and
fans and other local items.
Here too in the high season you're going to
run into crowds of tourists enjoying the same
sights that you are, but on a December evening
you can have it practically all to yourself
-- however avoid the sleazy red light district
another block west and bright with garish
neon.
Well now we’re back on the main busy commercial
shopping street, Shijo dori, and you see how
active it is.
Everybody's out, it's about six or seven pm,
shops are open, all the lights are on and
they have some very wide sidewalks here -- makes
it very friendly for the pedestrian.
You have some covered sheltered areas to protect
you from the weather and there even some side
streets that are for pedestrian only.
You’ll find that locals are friendly, even
if they don’t speak English.
These two parallel shopping arcades are called
Shinkyogoku and Teramachi.
It is terrific how they just covered the street
and converted this into a wonderful pedestrian
promenade.
Even in the middle of the shopping mall they've
got some shrines.
We found another vegetarian restaurant.
This is called Biotei, again in an obscure
little location – it was a little hard to
find but we persevered, we asked around the
neighborhood and sure enough we found it on
the street corner
Now we are going to reverse direction and
take you back to the eastern end of Shijo
dori to the Yasaka Shrine.
A visit here can help bring you health and
prosperity.
Yasaka-jinja is a Shinto shrine which includes
several buildings with gates, the main hall,
and the stage and right behind it you'll find
Maruyama Park which we have featured in yet
another movie about Kyoto.
Of course it's all very safe in the evening
to walk around in the temple grounds with
the beautiful lighting, a nice time to be
here.
Our hotel was located near the main Kyoto
train station, which would've been very easy
to walk from this neighborhood, it's less
than a mile through some lively city streets,
but instead we decided to take the Metro.
It's an easy couple of stops on the subway
and we’re there in a few minutes.
Of course Kyoto Station is a large modern
facility.
There are lots of shops, with beautiful architecture
and it's very much in the center of downtown,
so it's a great convenient location with several
hotels right nearby -- nine stories high,
there is a sky walk up above you can during
the day get a nice view looking out over the
city.
The Kyoto Tower is just a block away from
the station.
It's 100 meters high with an observation deck
at the top and a hotel at the bottom.
Back to our hotel, it's the New Miyako Hotel
located just next to the Kyoto train station
– a very convenient location and a nice
place.
This was arranged for us actually by JTB which
is the main tour operator in Japan, and it
was very pleasing accommodations, very traditional.
The hotel has 1000 rooms and yet when you're
having breakfast it's all very peaceful.
And we ran into this interesting local scene
in the lobby.
Two guests in beautiful, traditional kimono,
and then we noticed their friends are also
dressed up too, getting ready for some kind
of festivity.
It turns out a local gal is getting married
[“my daughter, this is my grandmother”]
and she's marrying an American guy.
She spoke very good English, so apparently
she lived in America, met this fellow and
then brought him back to meet the family and
have a wedding Japanese-style in the full
kimono outfits.
You really don't see many kimonos out on the
streets typically as you walk around in the
modern city.
Of course most fashions that you do see are
typically modern with trends changing from
one year to the next, especially in Japan,
a uniform culture conforming to the trends
-- and coming up shortly in the program we’re
going to show you a lot more street scenes
of people walking by, you can see for yourself.
For our final minute of the segment we’re
taking you back into the busy commercial heart
of Kyoto and Shijo dori.
We’re just going to drop you on the sidewalk
and put you into some prime people-watching
territory, with no further narration.
[music]
This is part of our series on the temples
and gardens of Eastern Kyoto, the Higashiyama
district, and also we’ll take you downtown
in some of our other videos.
Be sure to look for them on our YouTube channel.
