Do you really know Kyoto?
Kyoto was Japan's capital for more than a thousand years. These six questions go beyond the temple checklist to the city's companies, customs, sayings and summer fires.
Did you know?
- Saiho-ji, known as the Moss Temple, has a garden carpeted with more than 100 kinds of moss. To protect it, visitors must apply in advance and usually take part in copying a Buddhist sutra by brush before they are allowed into the garden.
- Nishiki Market, a narrow covered street about 400 metres long, is nicknamed 'Kyoto's kitchen'. It has sold fish and food for around four centuries, and today more than 100 shops offer pickles, tofu, sweets and kitchen knives to both chefs and home cooks.
- Kyoto's tofu has a strong reputation, partly because of the city's soft groundwater, which suits both tofu and sake. Yudofu, tofu gently simmered in a pot of kelp broth, is a classic dish in the temple districts, especially during the cold Kyoto winter.
A thousand years as the capital
Kyoto served as Japan's imperial capital from 794 until 1868, when the emperor moved to Tokyo. Over those centuries it became the centre of court culture, Buddhism, crafts and the arts. The city holds around 1,600 Buddhist temples and hundreds of Shinto shrines, and seventeen of its sites, together with a few in neighbouring towns, form a single UNESCO World Heritage listing. Kyoto is also a modern city of well over a million people, home to universities and high-tech companies.
A city laid out on a grid
Central Kyoto still follows the grid of Heian-kyo, which makes directions unusual. Instead of relying on street numbers, locals often describe a place by the nearest crossroads and add agaru, 'go up', for north, or sagaru, 'go down', for south, with nishi-iru and higashi-iru for west and east. Children learn a traditional counting song that lists the east-west streets in order, so they can remember which comes next as they walk south through the city.
The world of geiko and maiko
Kyoto has five traditional entertainment districts, called hanamachi, including Gion Kobu and Pontocho. Maiko train for several years in music, dance and etiquette while living in an okiya, a house that supports and trains them. They wear long, trailing obi sashes and style their own hair, while geiko usually wear wigs and more restrained kimono. Their evening performances at teahouses are normally by introduction only, but each spring the districts stage public dance shows that anyone can buy tickets for.
Festivals through the seasons
Kyoto's calendar is full of festivals. The Gion Matsuri lasts the whole of July and is famous for its yamaboko floats, some over 20 metres tall, which are pulled through the streets by teams of men and turned at corners by sliding them over split bamboo. The float procession is on UNESCO's intangible heritage list. In May, the Aoi Matsuri recreates a Heian-period court procession, and in October the Jidai Matsuri parades costumes from each era of the city's history.