Our day started like any other. The usual helping of eggs to start the day, and a morning chat with the kids back home to see how things were going. Today was the day we got to see Geisha. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an event of private entertainment since that is usually reserved for the wealthy, but a public event that happens during the month of April every year. It generally coincides with the cherry blossom season.
The Miyako Odori (都をどり), we had initially discovered later March during a YouTube Hanami party. A late arriver to the party was RoninDave. He already has a video on his YouTube channel regarding the Miyako Odori, although what he talked more about was the tea ceremony that was to precede the actual show. The ceremony was only allowed if you had a Special Class Ticket.
It was time to continue on our day, taking care of laundry and cleaning the dishes, and of course, generally getting ready to make our way to Gion. It was a video camera day for me, so I made sure that I had whatever gear was necessary to get some nice high definition footage of things that day. Come to find out, I didn’t really need it much since the Miyako Odori organizers didn’t allow video taping of the show. It was to be expected.
We made our way out of the house and walked up north towards Gion. It was located a 20 minute walk from where we were staying, but was a relatively easy walk. As usual, I made sure to consult with my GPS to make sure we were taking the right roads. Once we crossed Goji Dori, the streets tended to be busier than those by our house. The streets as usual were quite narrow. We had to watch our step along the way as there would be cars and vans trying to squeak their way by.
It was a bit of a walk, but we finally managed to get to an intersection where we’re going to be heading east. This road was short as it hit a ‘T’ intersection, but along the south end of the road was a temple hidden in a bunch of trees. We didn’t get a chance to see the temple as we were passing by on the way to the Kaburenjo Theater anyways. There was a gate on the road that you could enter the grounds.
Gion is generally a busy area. Local tourists as well as foreign tourists frequent the area since it is one of the more well known Geisha districts in Japan. The main street, known as Hanamikoji Dori, was very busy that day. Before the show, we decided to just browse the street for a while as there was still a few hours until the show began.
Along the sides of the streets, there were generally the odd restaurant here and there, although on the street itself, the restaurants were generally in the range of upper class. Everything from high quality beef to some killer lobster dishes. Unlike most tourist friendly restaurants that we would see, you didn’t see the plastic food displays. Just a menu with prices. Some of the menus we saw had pictures, and some didn’t, but my limited knowledge of kanji had allowed me to see what was on some of the menus.
I am thinking that one of these days, I may have to come back to Kyoto, if anything, to try some of the meals at these restaurants. Normally, they would look like any other building in the area, so as a tourist, you had to keep your eye open. Along Hanamikoji Dori were a number of smaller side streets. In general, these streets were much quieter then the main street. There were many establishments along these streets, but tourists seemed to be primarily fixated along Hanamikoji Dori.
I had veered off on one of the side streets, fixated on some of the simpler wooden architectures. While they were simple, they had an air of elegance about them. The doorways in most of these places had a fine slatted wooden door. They were sliding doorways, unlike the doorway at our house, which while wooden, swung towards the alley. Almost every doorway had a distinct red, semi spherical lantern hanging by the entrance way. It wasn’t difficult to tell that, aside from there being less foot traffic, these side streets weren’t designed for foreign tourists. No English or romanized Japanese to be seen anywhere. Unless you could read Japanese well, you couldn’t point out what any of these places were unless you had a chance to look inside. Some places you could, and the ones that I was able to see inside looked like restaurants, in addition to those on Hanamikoji Dori.
I was thinking that it might be really cool to stop by one of these restaurants later for supper, but just as we were contemplating that, my cell phone rang. It was Avi Lugasi, the manager of our Kyoto home. He had confirmed that he had talked to the people at the Iso-Ya restaurant and let them know that we would be there at 6pm. Confirming whether we were still interested in going, I let him know we would after quickly discussing it with the wife. It was done, we were booked, and we just needed to find something to eat for lunch.
Keeping budget in mind, we figured getting away from Hanamikoji Dori would probably be a good idea if we wanted to find food at a decent price. We did just that. While we thought that street was busy, we had made our way towards Shijo dori. As we arrived at Shijo Dori, we were met with a large gate that announced the nature of the street, primarily that it was the main entrance to Gion. At this time though, it was advertising the Miyako Odori.
The sidewalks on Shijo Dori were decently wide. The width didn’t make the sidewalk any less busy. It was crowded, and the people made it difficult to cross towards the stores, or even stop to take a look inside of stores. We shouldn’t have been surprised at this, but we didn’t expect the street to be a major one. We never did end up going east of Hanamikoji Dori, as we eventually found a spot to eat on the west side.
The time was ticking closer to 3:00 pm. Our show started at 3:30 pm. We wanted to make sure we had the time to at least check out the tea ceremony. I was looking forward to this event since I was told about it back in Tokyo. We had walked back down Hanamikoji Dori to the Kaburenjo Theatre. Out in the open, just past the parking lot was the reservation window.
There was a decent lineup at the window, and we were trying to figure out which window we should be waiting at. The line for the reservations seemed to be fitting, but as anyone who has been to Japan may know, some subtleties in the English language can be lost when the Japanese try to make English signage. It took us a little bit to realize which line we needed to be in.
As I was waiting in line, I was trying to think of what I need to say. Something basic. I had time to think as we probably had another 10 minutes till we got to the window. “I have a reservation” I thought would be a good start and we will go from there. But how do I say it? At this point, I had to try and figure out how to construct a sentence in Japanese. On my iPhone, I had an application called “Japanese”. It is really a fitting name for the app since it is a Japanese dictionary. The first thing I ended up doing was looking up the word “reservation”.
“Yoyaku” was one of the first words I saw, and the examples made sense. I remembered back home when I was at a sushi restaurant, I had asked the owner, Kaz Kobayashi, if they still had the Unagi Don. Essentially a grilled eel on rice. He went to the kitchen to check, but I recalled hearing him say, “Unagi ga arimasu ka?”. I remembered that the word “arimasu”was literally “to exist”. I made the assumption that if I removed the particle “ka”, which made the sentence a question, the sentence would essentially state that unagi simply exists. So I replaced the word unagi with yoyaku. In Japanese, it literally meant, “reservation exists”, but I would assumed that in an English translation, you would say it in the proper context as, “I have a reservation.”
I was constantly thinking in my head, “Yoyaku ga arimasu… yoyaku ga arimasu.” It kept popping in my head until I felt I could recall it with ease when I got to the window. Then other questions popped up. What will they say after? Will I understand them? I figured I would do what I normally do in these situations. Do what I need to do and hope for the best. This didn’t work to well later in our trip to Japan, but today, it did.
I got to the window. “Yoyaku ga arimasu.”
“Namae?”
I gave her my name, but the issue arose of pronunciation. I did what I could to pronounce my name for her, but the lady ended up getting the lady that took our reservation to begin with. We had received our tickets and continued towards the tea ceremony. The entrance almost reminded me of a small community church. There was a small ramp and staircase that took us to the ticket entrance. We had two tickets each. At this entrance, they took a piece off of only one of our tickets. The tea ceremony admission.
I wasn’t sure what to expect leading up to the ceremony. It started to get really busy in the hallways. There were shops here and there where you could purchase all sorts of memorabilia and incense. The hallway had opened up to a large room that had chairs and furniture in little ailes. The furniture had two purposes in this case. One was to efficiently herd us like cattle in a swerving line leading up to the room where the tea ceremony was held. The other was so that people who got tired of standing and waiting in line could have a place to sit. The room was not too big, but big enough to fit a large number of people as we waited for the group ahead of us to exit the tea ceremony.
After about five minutes of waiting in line, we had started to move. The line didn’t move too quickly, but as we approached the room, it was easy to see why. There were helpers guiding large amounts of people to ensure they had a place to sit. This took a bit of time, but as we arrived, the only thing I could focus on was the front of the room. A Geisha and her Maiko apprentice preparing tea. While this wasn’t the first time we have been to Japan, this was the first time I have ever seen a Geisha in person. It was also the closest I would knowingly get to one. The back of the room.
Like the room we were previously waiting in, it wasn’t too big, but slightly larger. Large enough to accomodate most of the people that were waiting in their own seats with small tables in front of them. The helpers had made their way to each of the tables offering a small saucer with a pastry in the middle. The pastry was bite sized, but you wouldn’t dare try to eat the entire thing in one shot. It contained some kind of bean paste in the middle, but the combined bean paste and pastry were both extremely sweet. Too sweet to try and eat all in one go. The tea came not long afterwards. Rotating the large ceramic teacup multiple times, one of the helpers then handed me the cup directly into my cuped hands.
The cup was quite large, and could almost be considered a bowl. Some kind of ceramic material with a rough texture. In the bottom was a small amount of tea. The tea was not necessarily brewed or steeped by the Geisha. The tea was mixed from a powdered form. This is generally known as Matcha. The green tea powder is mixed in warm water using a small bamboo whisk. The tea itself isn’t clear like is normally expected from typical steeped teas. This tea was a solid green with a thicker consistency due to the tea powder being absorbed into the water, rather than simply flavouring it.
The tea had a bit of a bitter taste to it, but it tasted very smooth. Much nicer than any matcha that I’ve made at home. There wasn’t much tea in the cup, but it was a flavour I won’t forget. It was a simple bitter flavour, but combined with the pastry I had only moments previous, it had a sweetness to it that made the flavour of the tea more complex. It was just the right amount of bitterness with just the right amount of sweetness, combined with the smooth texture of the warm tea. It tasted great. We had to move on though.
We had paper that we could use to wrap our dish that the sweet pastry came on. That was ours to keep. We had wrapped up both of our dishes and tried to find a place to store it in our camera bag. The helpers began directing the people in the tea room to the exit. The next group of people behind us were about to get their opportunity to enjoy.
The walk towards the theater was somewhat long, but the views were great. There was a hallway we passed through that had an opening on one side, providing views to the garden below. The garden was a beautiful combination of trees, flowers and cherry blossoms, with stone walk ways. There was an area where we could head down but we continued on towards the theatre. Approaching the theater, there was another set of hostesses checking tickets. We had shown our tickets and found our ways to our seats. We were on the floor level, and our seats were only a couple rows away from the entrance.
The theater is not a large theater, with most of its seating on the floor level. There are two balcony levels, one which has tatami floor seating only. The lights were already dimmed, but the performance wasn’t to begin for another fifteen minutes. As people were packing into the theater, we couldn’t help but take notice at the large number of other foreigners that were making their way into their seats. Some sitting next to us. I believe they were from the Netherlands.
A hostess was making her way around the theater with program guides. Six hundred Yen. I picked up a copy. They were quite thick and came in their own envelope. The envelope being made of a durable fabric like paper, with the words 都をどり (Miyako Odori) written on the front and elegant decorations. The program guide itself was quite thick. I looked through it to find mostly advertisements. Most of the content was in Japanese. I then got close to half way through the guide when I finally saw the program for the show. Each page was a separate act, and each act had a picture with the scene description written underneath in both Japanese and English. We had quickly skimmed through it until we reached the cast list. I had put the guide away and sat patiently waiting for the show.
3:30 pm. Not a moment later did the lights begin to dim. The music began to play. Traditional Japanese percussions echoing through the theater. No amplification, no speakers, just the natural sound of the instruments. The stage sat up front with wings coming up on either side along side of some of the audience seating. In the wall of these wings were box seats that were part of the stage. It was in these boxes that the instruments were being played. The left wing primarily consisted of the percussion instruments with strings with vocals mainly occupying the box in the right wing. Further yet from the stage, next to the boxes, were doorways leading onto the wings.
As the music began playing, the doors on the wings opened. Geisha had begun to file out of the doors in a synchronized dance in unison. They slowly made their way in front of the boxes, pausing for a moment while still dancing, then continuing directly onto the stage later in the act. I sat back and watched, almsot emotional. I was not sure what to feel, but I had an overwhelming sense of joy just minutes into the show. I couldn’t help but realize that I’m actually sitting in this theater, watching Geisha perform, listening to the beauty of traditional Japanese music. It was not something I thought would happen before we even went to Japan. It was only a couple days before arriving in Kyoto that we realized that this event was going on, and that it would be starting while we were in Kyoto. From the beginning of the show to the end, I had a huge smile on my face.
The show was about an hour long, and ended with all of the Geisha dancing on the stage in the various outfits worn during the performance. Each act told a unique story, and had significantly different costume sets. It was a fitting end to a show that I only wished would go longer, but, it was only the 3rd show of the second day that it was on. With 4 shows a day for a full month, they would have their hands full with performances. It is an event that I would highly recommend for anyone in Kyoto during April to check out.
We had left the theatre after being funneled through the exits with the hundreds of other people, back to Hanamikoji Dori. It was still early for our 6:00pm reservation at Iso-Ya, but I figured we should make our way there anyways. Firing up the GPS, I started to look for a route to take. The route that we had pointed out to take was slightly different than the route we actually took. We decided to cross the river early instead of walking along side it a ways. It didn’t really matter. I had it saved in OffMaps where we were going, so as long as roads connected to where I wanted to go, I was good.
