A Walk Around Geisha Town

At the heart of Kyoto is Gion, the city's most famous entertainment district, also known as the geisha district, hence, I titled this particular article a walk around geisha town. Gion is also the center of Kyoto's traditional arts.

On our first visit to Kyoto, the first place we visited was Nanzenji temple and the Philosopher's Path. After walking so much, we took the bus back to Gion and walked around some more.

Gion is located north and south of Shijo Street, stretching from the Kamogawa River in the west, all the way to Yasaka-jinja shrine to the east. And when you see the street signs, you see Shijo-dori. It is safe to say then that dori means street or road, hence Shijo-dori is Shijo St or road.

Gion attracts tourists with its high concentration of traditional wooden machiya merchant houses. You can find various bars, tea houses, restaurants and shops that sell souvenirs along the streets.

Since Gion is Kyoto's most famous geisha district, if you are walking around, you might just get lucky and see a real geisha on her way to work. Geishas are called geiko in the Kyoto dialect, and maikos are apprentices.

We had no distinct destination or direction while we were walking, we just walked where we saw crowds and old buildings, and we took pictures of almost every street corner.

I took this picture at the beginning of Shijo-dori on the east side, just after crossing from Yasaka Shrine. As was usual in Kyoto, there were a lot of people, but not as many as we encountered when we went to Kinkakuji.

Tourists like us, as well as locals were enjoying the sun and the cool weather to walk around the area. This was a side street we took because we saw wooden buildings on the side street as well.

It was so much fun seeing so many people in kimonos, but I think most of them were tourists wanting to experience walking around in a kimono.

And here, my friends, is a real geisha on her way to work. The lady with her must have been the assistant/manager or whatever they are called, and the man on the side was effusively greeting the geisha. We got lucky in spotting one!

There were many nooks and crooks, and we took pictures of whatever we fancied until our feet hurt from walking.

I wonder how they can walk in those slippers with the socks on. I guess I had to try it to know, but I'm quite sure that day will not come, ha ha. It's just not for me.

Gion in the evening has a different vibe altogether, with all the lanterns lit up and more crowds walking about.

This tea house apparently is a very exclusive tea house. It has been one of the most high-end establishments in Gion, offering geisha entertainment to powerful business and political figures, but strictly by invitation only. Intriguing, eh? :-)

This building is the famous Minamiza Kabuki Theater. Kabuki is a form of traditional Japanese drama with highly stylized song, mime and dance. I had to take this picture from across the street because of the crowds. Minamiza theater is the only one left of its kind. There were seven of them before but development of the district caused the other theaters to disappear.

At the end of one of the alleys we took, we found ourselves entering yet another temple compound, which happened to be the Kodaiji Temple. It was established in 1606 in memory of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of Japan's greatest historical figures.

The other buildings in the compound were under renovation works so we just took pictures of the front buildings and left. Apparently there are beautiful zen gardens surrounding it.

On the other end of Shijo-dori is the Kamogawa River, which in itself is another scenic walk as both banks of the river are dotted with cherry trees as well. We did not spend too much time here as by this time our feet were already aching from all the walking we did.

Meanwhile, this is the Yasaka Jinja shrine. This is located at the beginning of Shijo-dori, and we did not explore this shrine, we just went inside to have snacks because there are a lot of stalls that sell all kinds of food at the entrance. We went in right after we got off the bus from Nanzenji.

After eating our snacks and resting our feet for a while, we decided just to take a peek at the structures so we took a few pictures of the buildings in the compound.

As is usual with the Japanese temples, there were always crowds, and we did not have the energy to deal with more that day, so we just quickly took photos.

By the time we left the shrine, we were in dire need of rest, so we went to the park right beside the shrine which is called Maruyama Koen as it is known in Japanese, or in English, Maruyama Park.

Maruyama Koen is apparently Kyoto's most popular park for cherry blossoms. But when we got there, it was not a big park at all.

There were quite a few cherry trees which were in full bloom, and at the center of the park is a weeping cherry tree with pink blossoms, which was very nice.

We relaxed on one of the picnic mats that were there to rest our feet, and when it was getting dark, that's when we went to Chion-in Temple which was just a block or so away to see the evening illuminations.