This book is organized into a series of 29 walking tours in and around Kyoto. Map 1 shows the location of the tours in Kyoto City; Map 2 shows the location of tours outside the city proper. The length of each walking tour varies, but each can be completed within a few hours, depending on how long one wishes to linger. All of the most popular sites are included, together with some spots that may be unfamiliar even to long-time residents. The first walking tour of Kyoto begins with one of the older sections of the city, a sector which retains the physical aspects of an earlier age.
Chapter 1
CENTRAL
AND EASTERN
KYOTO
Walking Tour 1
KIYOMIZU AREA
Ancient Lanes to Kiyomizu Temple
1 Ninen-zaka and Sannen-zaka 二年坂/三年坂
2 Kiyomizu-zaka 清水坂
3 Kiyomizu-dera 清水寺
4 Nishi Otani Cemetery 大谷本廟（西大谷)
In the years since World War II, Kyoto has changed greatly. The city of one-story traditional houses has seen modern buildings of extraordinary height rise in its midst. Travelers often come to Kyoto looking for a traditional Japanese city of low buildings and architecture of past centuries. In stead, they are amazed by the modern steel, glass and brick structures they find. Kyoto, as with every other city in the world, continues to grow and to change, for it cannot remain a museum frozen in time. Yet there is strong concern in Kyoto about the continuing danger to the city’s historic nature and architectural heritage. There are ongoing attempts to preserve the best of the past in its temples and shrines as well as in its traditional housing. This initial walk therefore takes place in an area which has been designated as an historic section worthy of preservation, and it ends at one of the most venerable of Kyoto’s temples, Kiyomizu-dera (Clear Water Temple). This walk accordingly offers a partial glimpse of the city as it existed prior to the modernization of Japan in the 20th century.
Ninen-zaka, a pedestrian street lined with traditional shops and restaurants leading to Kiyomizu-dera.
1 NINEN-ZAKA AND SANNEN-ZAKA
One could walk straight up sloping Kiyomizuzaka from the bus stop to the temple, but a deviation two streets to the north along Higa shi-oji-dori (the main north–south street) offers a worthwhile diversion. Two streets to the north, turn to the right on to Kodai Minami Monzen-dori. At the second street on the right, turn again to the right and climb up the steps to Ninen-zaka (Two Year Slope) to begin a walk into the past. This offers a picture of the city of Kyoto as it once was. Fires have destroyed so much of old Kyoto through the centuries that it is unusual to find an area that still provides the appearance of a Japanese city before the modern age. Fortunately, Ninen-zaka and Sannenzaka (Three Year Slope) offer just such a remembrance of times past. Concerned over the disappearance of the two-story shops and homes which were typical of Kyoto city life, the city government has created a few “historic preservation districts” in areas which have remained comparatively unchanged. One such area encompasses Ninen-zaka and Sannen-zaka.
For centuries pilgrims labored up Ninenzaka and Sannen-zaka on their way to Kiyomizu Temple. (The strange names for the two streets have their basis in a superstition: to stumble on Ninen-zaka brought two years of misfortune, while a fall on Sannen-zaka could result in three years of bad luck.) Here, on these streets, the pilgrims found small restaurants which offered food, inns which provided a place to sleep and shops which sold the Kiyomiza-yaki and the Awata-yaki (yaki means “pottery”) as souvenirs of a visit to the temple, pottery which was made in the stepped noborigama kilns that were formerly ubiquitous on this hillside. Pilgrims still climb these slopes, as do thousands of tourists. The narrow two-story wood and plaster row houses one finds along the way once covered all of Kyoto, and although frequently destroyed by fire, they were always rebuilt in the traditional architectural style with the shop at the front and the family living quarters behind the sales area. Normally only 26 feet (7.9 m) wide, the buildings often extended as much as 131 feet (39.9 m) to the rear. Some of them were two-story structures that had narrow slatted windows at the front of the second floor. Since it was forbidden for commoners to look down upon passing samurai (warrior class) or daimyo (feudal lords), the narrow, slatted windows could help to hide the faces and eyes of curious merchant families if they dared to peer in forbidden fashion on their superiors passing beneath them. The great fire of 1864 destroyed 80 percent of Kyoto, and thus these buildings represent the latest rebuilding of the traditional cityscape prior to modern times.
Today’s shops, with perhaps one or two exceptions, have modern storefronts and interiors. In the past, the shop consisted of a raised platform on which the merchant sat and perhaps even created the wares he sold. The would-be purchaser was always welcomed with a cup of tea so that a proper mood could be established before the merchant’s wares were brought forth and displayed in front of the purchaser. Modern life seldom allows for such niceties, and thus the present shops are more oriented toward a contemporary display of chinaware or whatever is currently desired by the public. Ninen-zaka and Sannen-zaka are lined with old buildings which still serve as purveyors to the pilgrim and the tourist, although one must admit that tourists seem to be the main clients to whom the shopkeepers now appeal. But then, weren’t pilgrims of past centuries souvenir seekers as well? For sale here are small Buddhas, iron lanterns, scarves—all the paraphernalia of an ephemeral trade which the visitor cannot resist. A few restaurants tempt the hungry with the variety of noodles such Japanese establishments offer, and, of course, the soft drinks of the modern age. One enterprising shopkeeper on Ninen-zaka even has a rickshaw in which one can be photographed or even trans ported, the latter, naturally, for an appropriate fee. A few rickshaws do still exist, but their day is past, and those which remain appear primarily at times of festivals.
2 KIYOMIZU-ZAKA
Ninen-zaka bends gracefully, as a proper traditional Japanese street should, and ends in a short staircase which leads into Sannenzaka. In turn, Sannen-zaka also ends in a steeper set of steps which lead up to Kiyomizu-zaka (Clear Water Slope). As has been the case for the past several centuries, pottery can be found for sale along both Ninen-zaka and Sannen-zaka, but you will not encounter the full panoply of chinaware until you climb the steps at the southern end of Sannen-zaka and enter Kiyomizu-zaka, which leads uphill from Higashi-oji-dori to the Kiyomizu-dera Temple at the top of the street. In the last century, English-speaking visitors nicknamed Kiyomizu-zaka “Teapot Lane,” a name it still deserves. Here you can find shops which sell Kiyomizu-yaki (Kiyo mizu pottery) and other chinaware. Souvenir shops line the street cheek by jowl. The street is always crowded with visitors heading to the temple, many in groups led by their banner-waving leader. It is always a street full of excitement and color during the daytime.
Traditional Kiyomizu-yaki pottery is sold in shops along Kiyomizu-zaka.
The making of porcelain was a craft and an art which began to flourish in Kyoto as a result of the incursions into Korea in 1592 and 1597 by Japanese troops under the command of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the then civil and military ruler of Japan. The Koreans had learned the craft from the Chinese, and such products were appropriately summed up in one word in English-speaking countries as “chinaware.” Among the prizes of war brought back to Japan in the 1590s were Korean ceramic craftsmen and artists, and a fascination with their work led in time to the development of fine Japanese porcelains. The cult of tea, which developed under Sen-no-Rikyu, with the patronage of Hideyoshi,