gurdymonkey | Shopping day in Kyoto

It was still raining pretty steadily when I woke up and I had to think about what I wanted to do today as the forecast indicated it was probably going to continue for most of the day. The internet was not entirely helpful, but I figured that if a shrine or temple has a flea market because that's the day of the month they have special religious observances, it might still be on. Besides, that's the day they tend to open their treasure houses so you can see their special collection of art and artifacts.

So I grabbed the obnoxious orange plastic loaner umbrella out of the stand in front of Kyoto Hana, figuring it was the one I'd be least likely to leave someplace, and caught a bus across town from Kyoto Station. (I found myself inwardly snickering at the canned bus announcements of upcoming stops. Clearly computer generated, the preferred female, English accented voice invariably mangled pronunciation of Japanese landmarks.

Pretty easy: the bus stopped right in front of the entrance to Kitano Tenmangu, a shrine site for over a thousand years. (Hit that link for a nicer overview than what Wikipedia could come up with.) Despite the rain, the flea market was definitely on, and it's good that I got there early-ish, because it got busier as the morning went on.

You can clearly see in the photos posted to this entry just how much rain was coming down. It didn't seen to slow down shrine visitors, vendors or shoppers. The vintage kimono people were mobbed and I really can't rationalize buying more vintage stuff when I don't do much with the stuff I already have at home.

In addition to visiting the main shrine and making an offering - I owed one for the lucky shot of a Shinto priest darting past a doorway - I went to the treasure hall, which was doing some sort of themed exhibit associated with an anime called "Sword Arts Online." (Don't look at me, anime is not my geek, but it's popular and it gets visitors in the door to pay admission fees and that's fine.) The priest (I think?) at the admission desk spoke good English, regretfully informed me that the only things I could take pictures of were the "Sword Arts Online" swords and a flower arrangement, so I put my camera away and feasted my eyes on the good stuff. You know, like the huge mirror with the 16th c. map of Japan embossed on it. The glorious picture scrolls, including two Tosa school versions of the Kitano Tenmangu emaki. Swords, armor, even a complete set of horse's tack. (No photos, and I can't seem to find much about the treasure holdings online at the moment, or I would include links).

Back out into the rain again, I decided that (a) it was time for a snack and (b) there was more flea market to see, so I wandered around looking at things and virtuously reminded me that if I bought it, I had to carry it around all day. I was slightly tempted by a lovely tsuba (sword guard) with an inlaid monkey and handler on it, but the grumpy puss wanted about $100 for it, yet could not give me an idea how old it was. "Edo?" "Showa?" And do I really need it?

I did look at some men's obi (they work for me for fighting), but didn't love anything enough to buy. I did buy a small portion of deep fried Satsuma-imo (Japanese sweet potato), which appeared to be sprinkled with salt. It turned out to be sugar, which was also nice, but salt would've been great. (Last night's ramen left me pretty full and I'd skipped breakfast, so this was a good snack for the morning.)

Finally feeling like I'd "done" the flea market, I had to decide where to go next. Consulted Google Maps again as it seemed to be able to deal with spitting out the correct bus numbers and decided to go over to Nishijin. The Textile Centre is touristy, but it would get me out of the rain for a bit, and if memory served, there had been a shop pretty close to it that had brocade bolts for sale. The bus dropped me in front of the little Shinto shrine we'd seen a kemari game at during my last trip. The Textile Centre is a tall, black pile close to the intersection, plus, the first character in Nishijin (西陣) is "West," which is also the first character in Saionji (西園寺), so easy to remember for me. (Apologies to the non Japanese language savvy. Basically, some characters have Japanese readings and Chinese-based readings. "Nishi" and "Sai" both are "West." It's complicated.)

Sure enough, I struck gold. Right there, right next to the Textile Centre was the shop with the bolts in a rack, as well as pouches, eyeglass cases and other small items. The English sign out front read "Nishijin Kinran."

A young lady offered a pair of slippers and motioned to remove my shoes and set my umbrella of orangeness aside by the door, because inside there was even more. Prices ranged from 650 to 1050 yen per meter ($5.99 - $9.67). Considering this stuff is metallic thread brocade of famously high quality, I had a very hard time deciding and took my time. Of course the bolt I picked up was ten meters and they wouldn't cut it, but I will use at least 5 to 6 meters for something and if the rest gets turned into an insane cocktail dress or something, who knows? (I'll try to remember to take a picture later and post it in tomorrow's batch.) So I bought it. The sales lady realized it was going to be a transport pain, so she took the fabric off the roll and folded it into a nice plastic bag and then into a brown paper shopping bag.

I did poke inside the Textile Centre for a bit and came away with a nice graphic tee shirt and a tenugui (printed towel) which weren't too pricy - with all the wet, I figured an extra tee couldn't hurt to have.

What next? It was still earlyish. Time to hunt down the Secret Needle Shop, which, thanks to the internet isn't so secret anymore. Another bus got me to the Sanjo Teramachi shotengai (covered shopping streets) at the correct end of Sanjo, and sure enough, there was the palmistry sign and the corridor that led into a postage stamp sized garden and there was the tiny shop. I bought packets of needles for myself and a couple of friends who had requested them, plus a nice little pauwlonia wood sewing box. The proprietor was very sweet and was able to help me choose needles based on size and what they'd be used for. He handed me a pen so I could mark the packets as to whose needles they were, packed them into the box and then wrapped it beautifully for me.

I figured I'd walk down the shotengai for a bit and window shop because it was out of the rain. I looked in a couple of shops at some things and then stopped at Sir Thomas Lipton's because it was time for a sit down and a cup of tea. We'd stopped here on the 2014 trip and I knew it would be a nice pot of decent tea and a nice dessert selection. I got a pot of a pretty ok Darjeeling and decided to try the matcha tiramisu. That might have been a mistake in hindsight, because matcha is kind of strong and Darjeeling is subtle, but the other ingredients in the tiramisu mellowed the bitterness of the matcha. It was a nice treat.

As tonight is my last in Kyoto, I headed back to the hostel, got a load of laundry done and am about to head out in search of dinner. Then it will be time to pack what I can for the evening.

Assuming the weather forecast is accurate, tomorrow is the Jidai Matsuri parade. My plan is to check out, dump my luggage in a locker at Kyoto Station, go to the parade, come back to the station, collect my stuff, jump on a train to Nara, check into the guest house, then head straight for the Nara National Museum. Gonna be a bit of a long day, but should be worth it!

EDIT! Photo album has been updated to include some shots of the neighborhood at night and a picture of the fabric from the kinran shop.

Photos are up at https://www.flickr.com/photos/70104978@N00/albums

Walked around the neighborhood in search of food, ended up in a tiny, sketchy looking place called Kyo Chabana for beer and a white cheese and shrimp okonomiyaki grilled by a scowling cook who cracked the faintest Yojimbo smile when I said, "Gochiso deshita sama,"* as I left. (Literally, "It was a feast." Though the silence with which I plowed through the entire thing probably convinced him as well.)

Marilyn on one wall, Audrey Hepburn on the other, French dude with two sons chainsmoking their way through dinner, two Japanese girls at the other end of the counter. I am stuffed to the back tonsils with beer and cheesy, pancakey goodness. And the shrimp was perfect - which is hard to do at high heat unless you time it just right.