Day 2: Nishijin Textiles, Kyoto Imperial Palace, & Nishiki Market

After seeing the western Arashiyama district yesterday, today we visited central Kyoto -- most notable for the Kyoto Imperial Palace. It is only open for visit under a guided tour by the Imperial Family Agency, and they offer 2 tours a day in English (our turn is at 2pm). So first we're going to visit the Nishijin Textile Center on Imadegawa street, just half a kilometer away from the palace.

The Kyoto subway system, like the streets above, was extremely clean. Rarely did we see litter anywhere; in fact, trash cans were uncommon as well. Everyone lined up in an orderly, single-file line behind markers on the ground.

The train came promptly. We took the north-south subway line 5 stops; the train stations had signs in both Japanese and English, and made getting around possible.



The Nishijin textile center is a demonstration center for the making of kimono and ornamental obi clothing. We made it just in time for their kimono fashion show -- the clothes are so ornate and finely made. We noticed it is common for women to wear kimonos out on the streets as everyday wear (though more plain designs).

A lot of what seems to be a part of such an intricate outfit is how a woman carries herself -- she takes small, graceful steps, and wears these wooden platform shoes that looks to be 2-3 inches thick! The only thing that seemed to break the gracefulness of this show was this huge Chinese tour group that was making a loud ruckus, and taking photos of themselves in front of the models and making little peace-signs for the photos.

While they did not have a formal explanation or tour, we did get to see artisans work at different stations as they each made a part of the kimonos. I never knew it was so complex! Beyond the typical cutting and sewing together of the garment, an artist actually uses an ink and draws a very fine outline of the patterns onto the fabric. Then, the design is hand-painted within the outlined borders (see left), and while the garment is stretched on this small hem, the paint is heated over a stove and the colors slowly change. One of the artists was really nice and asked us our names, and then used his brush pen and wrote, in the finest handwriting ever (like size 1 font), our names on a piece of paper for us... oh, and his hand was not allowed to rest on the paper either. Watching them at work was really quite a treat.

Heading back towards the Imperial Palace, we stopped for lunch at this cute little restaurant along Imadegawa Street (could not understand the shop's name). We both got a set lunch: Karen's had a bowl of udon with fishcakes, tsukemono (pickled vegetables that seem to be sometimes the ONLY vegetable in the meal), and a bowl of rice with salmon and seaweed flakes. I got Tonkatsu (one of my fav's in the US), which is essentially deep-fried breaded pork chop in this really awesome sauce, and that came with a small bowl of udon. It seems that many set meals in Kyoto have both noodles and rice.

NOTE: To those who also love Tonkatsu, yes, this was better than what you can get in the US. Not really sure how just deep-fried pork can be any better or worse, but the breaded crust was flaky and airy, and the sauce just tasted really fresh.

Kyoto became the capitol in 794 A.D. when the emperor moved his administration from the nearby city of Nara where he grew a fear of loss of political control to the powerful monks. From 794 to 1868, the Kyoto Heian Palace, or daidairi, burned down numerous times from warfare, lightning, or household fires. Whenever a new palace is being rebuilt, the emperor’s family would reside in a temporary residence or sato-dairi. The Kyoto Imperial Palace is one such sato-dairi, and the original palace was never rebuilt after it burned down in 1177.

The palace area is huge (~1 square km) – the palace walls are surrounded by an inner courtyard, which is walled off and surrounded by an outer courtyard. Five gates allow access into the palace, of which one only opens for the Emperor, another is for the Empress and the children (which happens to be on the opposite end of the grounds), and another for visiting dignitaries. We entered through this last gate, but could only look through the windows as we were not allowed to go into any of the buildings. All the buildings were made of wood and paper – the roofs were carefully made of hundreds of layers of bark to insulate heat in the snowy winters (see photo on left), and the throne and resting places were open and airy for cooling in the summers. Supposedly, the design was based off of a palace in China, and so the throne faced the south. Despite its splendor, the furnishings seemed very sparse – the emperor laid on simple tatami mats, and appears to have slept on simple matting on the wood floor (the empress slept in a separate room). The cooks and kitchen were located in a totally separate, rock-lined area to reduce the risk of fires.

Interesting fact: Despite all these precautions, one year there was a big fireworks display in Kyoto, and one of the incendiaries flew 1.5km(!) and landed on the palace roof, and caused (again) another big fire. Since then, fireworks have been banned from the city. This current palace has stood since 1855.

The main “quad” inside the palace is constructed of sacred white gravel flanked by a cherry blossom tree on the left and a mandarin orange tree on the right. All the interior pillars are painted with an orange color -- I am unclear if the orange is the same Shinto orange seen in the Fushimi gates (see Day 4), but if so, it is meant to represent the sun and ward off the evil spirits associated with darkness and night. The white and yellow painted at the end of each wooden crossbeam was done to repel termites, but the rest of the surfaces are not treated… go figure.










After the palace, we took the subway to the Nishiki market, a street lined with 100+ shops selling sweets, teas, seafood, tofu, pickled things, and anything else edible for 4-5 city blocks.

Known as "Kyoto's Kitchen", this street has existed for "a few centuries", and many of the shops carried on from generation to generation. Imagine going down this street trying random free samples of each specialty... that was what it was like.

You might be wondering why Keith was smiling like he was in pure joy. It's because there was a shop that made donuts out of tofu. For about 350Yen (~$4 USD), we got a bag of 12 bite-size donuts.


They were quite plain with a little sweet, very slightly bean-y taste, and were very airy and not cake-like at all. Karen, who normally does not eat donuts, said they were "really good" (Karen) too! They were gone in about 47 seconds.


More photos... on the right showing what one of those pickled daikon looked like, and on the left a shop that had braised clams in some broth.












After a few blocks of aggressive food sampling, we got tired and took a break in a mochi shop :). This was an afternoon tea set with four different types of mochi -- warabi mochi on the right, and I can't remember the flavors on the larger plate. Not that it wasn't memorable... just that we ate so much it's hard to remember what was what.

There are a few other interesting streets nearby. There is a covered arcade filled with clothing stores (Teramachi Street), and one filled with restaurants (Pontocho). We went home to nap before heading out for dinner! Thus ended our 2nd day (post edit: much to our worry, our weight didn't change after that day)!