Last Day in Kyoto

June 5, 2008

So Ryan stayed up until 4 in the morning going out to karaoke with people form the hostel and totally messed up his schedule for Miho Museum. He said he was going to just bike around to check out a couple of spots around town before meeting us at Nijo-jinya. Winston comes down with a stomachache so he's stuck at the hostel for a while. Jen and I head off to the Traditional Crafts Museum by Heian Shrine.

The Traditional Crafts Museum is in the basement of another building, and it seems a bit small but ends up being the perfect size. There's a fair amount of exhibits including: dying of kimonos, tassels, wood block prints, fans, bamboo goods, wine madking stuff, dolls, lacquer-ware, lacquered mini shrine cabinets (obviously not the proper term), and bows and arrows. The gift shop actually had some pretty cute stuff. Got a postcard that I need to send home tomorrow, and some presents for people.

We're a bit hungry at this point and head back to the hostel to check up on Winston. It rains on us on the way back and we gambled on it not raining even though the clouds were pretty dark. Winston's feeling better so we decide to head out for Daiichi Asahi for lunch since Jen has not yet experience the awesome ramen that they make. We walk there and I see that they have their curtains closed. There's NO ONE at the shop. This makes Dan sad. So we have to settle for the restaurant next door and its not nearly as good. The broth is too salty and the bean sprouts are all limp. Blah. We eat quickly and then book it to Kyoto Station so that we're not late to meet our translator for the tour at Nijo-jinya.

M-san is waiting right in front of Nijo-jinya and we make it there just in time for the tour. It looked like Ryan might not make it in time but it turns out that he beat us there. Nijo-jinya is basically an inn that was created to house and entertain feudal lords that were visiting Nijo Castle and staying in the area. The inn has all sorts of anti assassination traps and secret hiding areas for protecting its guests.

Features of the inn include:
-fireproof plaster walls since buildings were quite prone to catching fire back in those days
-multiple wells that were linked to each other so that each would always have water in case of a fire
-a skylight that also served as a hiding place for guards that could watch and enter to room if an intruder was detected
-a Noh stage with soundproofing panels built into the sliding doors
-there was an alcove made from a very expensive maple that could have bought you a house back in the day
-"monkey steps" built into a wall that would allow someone familiar with the house to scale a wall and escape into a hiding area in the ceiling
-hidden staircase disguised as a shelf
-a tilted room so that the occupants felt that they were at sea
-"trap ladder" or "pitfall" trap staircase. The one hiding would run down the stairs and pull out a board at the top of the stairs causing the pursuer to misstep and tumble down the stairs in to a wall
-a secret hiding cabinet with another hidden hiding place behind it

There was other crazy stuff, but you really have to experience the tour to really appreciate what I'm talking about. After the tour we head to an udon restaurant. I have to use the toilet and am faced with a Japanese style porcelain hole in the ground. There was squatting involved but I know I didn't pull that off properly.

Ryan has plans for the evening so Jen, Winston and I bus it to Kyoto International Manga Museum. It's basically a huge manga library that was donated to the museum by Go Matoba when it started up. I wander around a bit but there's really not that much to do there besides read manga. There's something like 200,000 items in their collection right now and they plan to increase that number to 300,000 in the near future (I forget when).

It's getting a bit late so we return to the hostel, transfer some photos and say goodbye to Jen and Ryan. They're headed to Tokyo for a couple of days before going home. It's off to Osaka for us tomorrow.