AROUND KYOTO

An Italian restaurant spreading out at the foot of the Tower of Yasaka, the symbol of Kyoto. From this area, a repository of Japanese history, one can walk to Kiyomizu-dera Temple and Yasaka Shrine. The building is a Japanese mansion, the renovated former home of the master of nihonga (Japanese-style painting) Takeuchi Seiho, who built it about 90 years ago. Its expansive garden presents endlessly enchanting scenery with the changing of the four seasons.

The geiko (Kyoto equivalent of geisha) and maiko (apprentice geiko) have their origins in the servers at roadside teahouses in Kyoto's Higashiyama district, home to Yasaka Shrine (then Gion Shrine), about 300 years ago. The women ceremoniously served tea to people making pilgrimages to shrines and temples or traveling on the highway. The teahouses themselves began by offering tea and dumplings but later added alcoholic drink and prepared food. The women who worked there began to imitate kabuki performances by playing the shamisen and dancing. Their present-day successors carry on this tradition under the severe demands of custom in the entertainment district centered on the Gion section of Kyoto.

The Buddhist temple Otowa-san Kiyomizu-dera was opened about 1,200 years ago, in 778. As a sacred place of pilgrimage to Kannon, symbol of great mercy, it has been widely popular among common people from ancient times. The 13,000-square-meter precincts on the side of Mt. Otowa, in eastern Kyoto, contain over thirty temples and monuments including National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties. Over the years, the temple structures have been destroyed by fire in ten great conflagrations. Each time, however, they have been rebuilt in an act of deep faith. Most of the present structures were rebuilt in 1633. In 1994, Kiyomizu-dera was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List as one of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto.

Yasaka Shrine is a Shinto shrine located on the north side of Gion in Higashiyama Ward, City of Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture. It is one of twenty-two shrines. It formerly held the highest rank of Imperial shrine, Kanpei-taisha, but it is now a "shrine on the special list" of the Association of Shinto Shrines. It is the chief shrine of all the Yasaka Shrines and shrines dedicated to Susanoo-no-Mikoto (the Shinto deity of the sea and storms) throughout the country. It is also commonly called Gion and is known for its Gion Festival in July.

Kodai-ji Temple is a Buddhist temple of the Zen sect Rinzaishu Kenninji in Higashiyama Ward, City of Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture. Its honorific mountain name is Jubuzan, and the temple name is properly Kodaiji-jushozenji. The temple was established by Kita no mandokoro, wife of the shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi, in his memory. The temple name comes from Kodaiin, the name taken by Kita no mandokoro after she took vows as a nun. Besides being a Zen temple principally dedicated to Gautama Buddha, Kodai-ji has the character of a mausoleum enshrining Hideyoshi and Kita no mandokoro.