The Real Kyoto

City Scenes

We’ve had a great time in Kyoto and I’m glad we decided to stay here for a while and explore.  In order to do that we had to give up seeing some of the other sights in Japan.   I did not want to do a one day in each place sort of trip so that’s the tradeoff.   We’ve really gotten to know a bit of the city.  Taking buses and subways all over really orients you well and that’s what we’ve done.  I also think this would be a good place if you wanted to learn Japanese as very few people here speak English and they expect you to speak Japanese to them.  My little phrase book has gotten a good work out here, although my pronunciation takes people aback.  But they don’t laugh, they patiently explain and we seem to communicate fairly well.

Many of the historic sites in Kyoto are beautiful and have a fairyland quality, but I think  what I have blogged about may also create a false impression of the city as a whole.  Although we’ve had a great time here and this is a very livable city it’s more like a smaller American city.  Except for a few areas that are very upscale the streets look like one strip mall after another:  small shops everywhere. There is no downtown business center as such and no really tall buildings.  Eight or nine stories are about the norm.  The city is in a bowl ringed by medium sizes hills so it’s size is pretty much set.  The population is slightly over a million and is packed into a fairly tight area.  There is a main high end shopping and restaurant area on Shijo Street that is very lively and fun and the Gion area that has a lot of boutiques and night life and the train station which has hotels an shops and restaurants but that’s about it.

The city is designed on an ingenious plan, though.  It’s a grid design with main boulevard type streets every half mile or so. The area enclosed within these large streets is then also divided into a grid of very tiny streets and these streets are packed with residences, usually one or two story houses or low rise apartments that are wedged in tightly.   Yet many have teeny yards and there is often little pocket shrines squeezed in.  Little courtyards of rock with a tiny alter, candles and incense. These cubes within cubes are fascinating and we’ve had many interesting walks exploring them.