After returning from Daitoku-ji, we decided to grab something to eat. Francis’ guidebook recommended the Karafuneya Coffee shop, which apparently not only specialized in a wondrous variety of sweets, but had incredibly detailed models of them to look over while waiting to be seated. If you’ve ever wondered what over two hundred varieties of parfait would look like, look no further. From individual treats to a 50000-yen variety that would likely feed an entire school class, it was here. Kate reveled in the sheer concept and ultimately decided on a caramel apple pie parfait.
The shop didn’t just serve dessert, it also had a selection of diner classics including salads and onion rings, but the displays at the front showed you where their heart was. Our visit also showed us how attitudes on smoking were evolving. We were given a choice sitting at two tables or sitting together but within close proximity of the smoking station. We’d later dine at places that did not have a non-smoking section, but the balance did seem to be shifting both in the restaurants and on the streets. In that latter case, smokers were increasingly clustered and carrying a lit cigarette while walking was discouraged, at least in the larger cities.
After we finished we crossed the Kamo river at Sanjo Dori and made our return to Gion. Looking up the Kamo and walking the streets of Gion were disproportionately strong memories from my 2002 trip, and the actual reality did not disappoint. The west bank (the right of the picture) was backed with restaurants often with deck dining and that seemed to be open much later than those we encountered the prior night in the depths of Gion. The east bank had a linear park that helped serve as a transition between the two parts of the city.
Kyoto can be a hot city. It certainly was while we were there, with easily the highest temperatures of the trip, hitting the eighties and nineties. This made the attraction of the Kamo quite obvious and tall buildings with rooftop decks proliferated in a delightful mix of styles. However, there’s nothing new about gathering by the river for entertainment; that’s where Izumo no Okuni founded Kabuki on dry riverbeds. The Kabuki-za theater, shown on the left, and a statue of the lady both owe their proximity to those origins. Famously, though, Kabuki subsequently became entirely the domain of male performers, as a consequence of the social controls of the Tokogawa era, a subject we’ll return to in a future post.
We then proceeded to weave through the streets of Gion. The section by the Kamo seemed densely packed with any number of diversions housed in an eclectic mix of architectural styles and accouterments. Our destination for the night was the Gion-Shimbashi district, a charming historic pair of streets and canal that had quieted down for the night but still was an exciting new atmosphere for most of us. At the end of the strip was a restaurant with its own patron cat, shown at the right. If you look at the slideshow below you’ll see that it even has a shelf at the base of the hostess stand with a pillow for it to rest on. I won’t try to draw any larger observations from that, aside from noting that distinctive character proved easy to find in that part of town.
After completing our circuit, we headed back towards our guest house, along the well lit streets of Shijo Dori. We made it home more easily this time, the twisty avenues at the end of the journey were becoming more familiar. Also welcoming was the sight of the Yasaka shrine at night, which unlike the many other portions of that walk actually shows up nicely in nighttime photography.