Memoirs of a...

I have really gotten behind on this whole blog thing, so I'll make this short and sweet.

About two months ago, I went to Kyoto with my dad. This was my second visit to Kyoto. The last one was seven years ago and fueled by my newfound (and continuing) obsession with all things geiko/geisha/maiko. I've always had some interest in geisha, but reading Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha in the week before my first trip to Kyoto really put me over the top. I would visit temples in the daytime and stalk maiko-san and geiko-san in the evenings. It was great. After the trip, my interest continued and I've gone on to read several books by both Western and Japanese writers about what life is like for geisha. This thread will be discussed in another post, but anyway, you get the idea of what I focused my evening/dusk energy on during this trip.

Kyoto is the old (but not oldest!) capital of Japan, before the seat of power was moved to Edo (Tokyo). And, very luckily, Kyoto was spared from the American attack on Japan in World War II, so it has retained many of the buildings and neighborhoods which have been standing in that city for hundreds of years - a major accomplishment in a country where traditional housing consisted of a lot of wood, straw, and paper (a.k.a. kindling). There are more temples and shrines than you can imagine and the main activity in visiting Kyoto is to visit these temples. I saw all the major ones on my last trip, so this trip had several off-the-beaten-path goals for my dad and I:

My must-sees:
1) Kamishichiken - one of the five geisha neighborhoods around Kyoto. This one is smaller and was described as more evocative of old Japan than the more famous Gion. We hit this first thing Saturday. The neighborhood was quiet and small, but I was able to buy a great purse made from the silk material used to make obi (the sort of sash used for kimono) and get a feel for what a geisha 'hood looks like in daylight and how the women go about their daily lives. Granted, we didn't see any maiko-san, but the clerk at the pickled veg shop told us that we'd just missed one! Ugh!

2) A particular Japanese sweets shop that was mentioned in one of my books as the place to buy cakes and that those in the know in the geiko community always get their gift cakes from. The best part about it is that it is down this tiny alley and definitely fell into the off-the-beaten path category - in fact, it was barely even on any path, the alley was narrow. We bought three kinds of sweets. They were pretty good, but, to be honest, the coolest part was knowing that I was eating something that was from a sort-of secret institution, ya know?

3) Ichibei - This is the old mistress-keeping neighborhood of Kyoto. Here the mistresses of important and rich men were kept in a stone-walled quarter that could only be accessed through non-descript doors. The book I read about this in described it as a little-known area where you can still see the old houses the women were basically imprisoned in. Well, I guess it must have been little-known at the time that book went to press, because it was fairly packed when we went. It's in the Higashiyama district (see below) where there was a major even going on that night, so the area didn't quite have that off-the-beaten path feel. BUT, it was still really pretty to see with all the lanterns and it did give the idea of what the streets must have been like back in the day. Although there were a fair amount of people around, it was still really quiet and peaceful at that magic dusk hour. After walking around this area, we were off to...


My dad's must-sees and must-shows:
1) Hanatouro - literally meaning "Flower and light road," according to a website I found about. Japanese readers, please feel free to correct that if necessary. Basically they line the streets of Higashiyama with lanterns. The streets in this area are all old and narrow and look really beautiful with the lanterns. This lantern event only happens in March, so my dad wanted to be sure to show me this as I wouldn't be able to see it any other time of year. Not to mention that I doubt I'll be getting back to Kyoto any time soon - it's suuuuper expensive to get there, considering train prices that I was used to in Europe. There's also a performance area off the main street where they had taiko drum performances and maiko-san dance performances. Here's a video of the maiko-san dancing. (By the way, the singer's voice is supposed to sound like that. I asked my dad just to be sure, he said that she has a good voice. She is singing in a traditional style while playing the shamisen, a sort of banjo-like instrument.)

2) Tenryu-ji - One of the most important Zen Buddhist temples in Japan (one of the five found in Kyoto). My dad has visited almost all of the five, so we wanted to add this temple to our visit. The garden here was amazing. It was too bad the cherry blossoms weren't out, but the structure of the garden and the grounds was amazing anyway. There was a nearby bamboo forest that we visited as well. These forests used to be more common around Japan, but, as you can imagine, there's little room left for them these days. We took an old steam train through a gorge nearby. None of the trees were blooming at that time, but the trees themselves were everywhere and I can just imagine what it must look like when they're all in full bloom.


Okay, that's the nitty-gritty, most important stuff that we saw this time in Kyoto. I'm planning to see the Miyako Spring Dances there next year, so I'll have more adventures to report then. Sorry for the super delay in getting this out.

To leave you with a sweet taste of Kyoto and more temptation to visit me in Japan, check out the photos I posted below:

Me in the plum tree garden... we got there just a little too soon for full blossoming. :(

Plum tea and rice crackers in the plum tree garden.

Different kinds of tofu with different dipping sauces.

Maiko-san after their dance performance at Hanatouro.

At the entrance of the old courtesan/mistress neighborhood where the rich guys stashed their "special lady friends."

Plum blossoms.

These are not the real thing. See if you can spot the tell-tale signs of the real McCoy versus these girls by comparing them with the girl in the photo below.
















The real deal - a maiko-san I got a picture of as she was running between appointments.











My dad and I couldn't figure out what this little torii might be for considering it was about a foot above the ground. My dad's guess was that it's for dogs. I think he was joking.