Castles, Gardens, & Window-shopping in Central Kyoto

PICS HERE

Today we have a 10am reservation at Kyoto Imperial Villa. We take the 206 to Kyoto Station, arrive 20 min. early, & hop on #33 to our destination. We get there an hour before our reservation begins, so we kill time by snacking at a busy roadside mochi shop. A variety of beautifully exotic & delicate mochi pastries of all shapes & colors sit lined up under the glass countertop. Robby orders three: one looks like a dumpling skin folded in half, filled with red bean paste with ground peanuts sprinkled on top; one is a firm green jelly triangle with green jelly balls on top; & another dark green one looks a traditional mochi ball without powder on the outside, with a caky white paste inside. They are served on separate dishes with large wooden toothpicks & two cups of cold green tea. The mochi is delicious.

Still with time to kill, we walk toward the Imperial Villa along a river. We see a homeless man sleeping under the bridge, a fisherman with a motorcycle parked beside him, & further ahead, where there are flat grassy lawns, old people putting with large wooden golf clubs.

When we arrive at the Imperial Villa, I pull out my reservation printout & hand it to the guard. A puzzled look crosses his face. He explains that this is Katsura Imperial Villa & our reservation is for Kyoto Imperial Villa! We cannot spontaneously set reservations for Katsura Imperial Villa even though we are standing at the front gate, & I feel like a fool. Robby takes it very well. At first he blames the clerk at the tourist office, but I pull out my itinerary & discover that the mistake is my own - I had written “Kastura Imperial Villa” instead of “Kyoto Imperial Villa”. Robby is so sweet - he laughs it off & says that there’s nothing wrong with an occasional adventure. I feel so guilty that I have traveled on two buses only to arrive at the wrong location.

We hop back on the bus to Kyoto Station then to another to Kyoto Imperial Palace. Another mishap occurs:
We are dropped off at the northwest corner of the park & we enter through the center north entrance. We walk clockwise (eastward) along the tall palace walls. We walk on pebbly gravel along the north wall, then lengthwise along the east wall. which is really, really long. We assume that the entrance is on the south side but find the gates closed, so we walk the length of the south side & up to the west side. We find the entrance on the northern side of the west wall. We waste so much energy circling the Imperial Villa!

We change our reservation to 2pm & sit to wait for an hour. An older gentleman sits at our table & strikes up a conversation. His English is very good. He asked where we are from & says he has been to Long Beach, San Pedro, Anaheim, Sacramento, Oakland, Ensenada, & San Diego. Actually, he has been on almost every coast in the world because he was a seaman for 40 years. He was extremely talkative & interesting. Born in 1938, he started working on ships when he was 18 and went from navigating to becoming captain. He sailed large barges, shipping Japanese goods, such as cotton & cheap clothing, to countries all over the world. Robby asks if he had ever encountered pirates. Once, he says. He was sailing from Singapore to Thailand across Malaysia when pirates attacked. He and the crew locked themselves in the ship as the pirates approached on small fishing boats & climbed up “like monkeys”. They could not open any of the doors to reach the interior of the boat, so they gave up & left. When he & his crew emerged, he found pirate footprints on the deck. He says this happened only once & many decades ago. From then on, he was always careful & alert when crossing Southeast Asia. He is a pleasant gentleman, and we rarely have an opportunity to meet a Japanese person who speaks English so confidently, so we feel refreshed after our morning fiasco.

The English tour through Kyoto Imperial Palace is quite but thorough. There are at least 50 tourists in this group, but the tour guide carries a microphone & wears a speaker. We are not allowed to walk into the buildings, but we can circle the exterior & some of the doors are open for us to view the wall paintings inside. Here are some facts we learn about the palace:
- Kyoto was the capital of Japan for over 1,000 years.
- It was burnt down several time & rebuilt.
- The walls extend 450m north-south & 250m east-west. (Wow, we did a lot of walking!)
- Three types of architecture appear in the different buildings: shinden, shoin, & sukiya styles.
- The shinden style consists of white walls, orange (“vermillion”) pillars & rafters, & ceramic roofs. The buildings have wooden floors & no ceilings. The largest building on the compound, Shisinden, is over 7 stories tall & holds the throne of the emperor & empress. An orange tree & cherry tree stand at it entrance, symbolizing prosperity & loyalty. This style is largely influenced by the Chinese, though the Chinese used more red. The bright vermillion was believed to ward off evil spirits. The white paint was made by crushed sea shells.
- Most characteristic of the shoin style are its many-layered roof. Over 70 layers of cypress bark are layered & held together by bamboo nails. No wonder the problem with fires. The builders feared fire so much that the kitchen was a detached building set away from the main compound. The cypress roofs are replaced every 25 years.
- The sukiya style consists of what we typically see in traditional Japanese architecture: tatami floors & sliding doors.
- The emperor officially has one wife but can also have many concubines, though he does not as many as the Chinese emperor.

After the tour, we have lunch at a tiny restaurant called Hometown Curry & Coffee. There are only 4 tables that seat two & a counter that seats 4 people. A middle-aged man cooks behind the counter & there are a few bookcases of manga in the corner of the restaurant. Most people come in to read the newspaper or manga with a cup of tea or coffee. Luckily for us, he fishes out an English menu AND he speaks a little English coherently. Robby orders homemade beef curry with rice, & I order a mixed sandwich with egg & potato. WOW. This is one of the best meals we’ve had in Japan. Sure, the sushi is spectacular, but this home-cooked is pretty fabulous too. The slightly spicy brown curry has beef, carrots, & potatoes. My sandwich has a layer of warm fried egg, mildly sweet potato salad, lettuce, & a few sauces (mayonnaise & ketchup). What special food! Robby keeps telling the owner how delicious our food is (in Japanese). This sure beats the strange skewers we ate last night!

After lunch, we take two buses to Nijo Castle. We’re getting pretty adept at figuring out the bus map & getting off at the right stops. Nijo Castle is free AND we get to walk inside the Ninomaru Palace, which as 33 rooms. This castle was once the home of famous Tokugawa shoguns. The most interesting feature of the Ninomaru is its nightingale floor. The shogun feared attacks from enemies so there is an inner & outer moat too. According to Frommer’s guide, the floorboards “creaked when trod upon in the castled corridors. The nightingale floors were supplemented by hidden alcoves for bodyguards. Furthermore, only female attendants were allowed in the shogun’s private living quarters.” Talk about paranoid!

From Noji Castle, we go to Nishiki Kori-Dori, a huge covered shopping area near the Gion district. Along one long alley, there are many booths that sell vegetables, pickled dishes, mochi, prepared foods, raw fish & octopus, & dried goods. The alleys that run perpendicular have larger clothing shops. It seems like the Harajuku of Kyoto but not so extreme. We spot a few American clothing shops there: XLarge, Patagonia, etc. Robby is delighted by the funky & colorful clothing. He is tempted to buy a pair of trendy pants. The cost of clothing is comparable to the U.S. (maybe even on the pricey side), & I have yet to see a Japanese person scouring through the sale section. We see one girly shop with a doll-like clerk behind the cash register, & we laugh at all the t-shirts with garbled English phrases on them. Observing Japanese fashion is so fun. I think we’ll do more shopping in Kyoto than Tokyo.

We buy some prepared food but have no place to sit & eat it, so we order a cup of tea at a cafe & sneak upstairs to eat it. This distresses me so much that I literally lose my appetite & cannot stomach the food that I’ve bought. Where do Japanese people eat once they’ve bought prepared foods? After perusing through the shops, we head back to the Gojo Guesthouse & turn in for the night.

I recommend the mochi shop we visited this morning. If you happen to be visiting the Katsura Imperial Villa via bus, you will be dropped off immediately after crossing a bridge. This shop is right across the street from the bus stop.

Phew, we’ve done a lot today & made good use of our day bus pass.