No regrets. Kyoto

Yes, we’re in Kyoto. Yes, I said we wouldn’t come back a third time. But who am I to deny the appeal of this place? Kyoto is a big yes.

We’re staying in a traditional house, a machiya. Machi means town, ya means house. So townhouse. They’re lined up, abutting the other houses on the street and have no setbacks.

It’s all sliding doors inside. Everything is concealed, contained. We have no view, all windows to the exterior are frosted. Anywhere else this would be a non-starter for me, but here it feels right. No lofty surveying of the landscape, these houses are all about interiority. Everything is subtle, diffuse. It makes me think of houses as containers of lives, of consciousness. This house makes you move deliberately, carefully through the space. It doesn’t lend itself to big, quick movements.

Nearly empty niches are an important feature.

An accommodation to western habits, this one has a couch. And a tv. Our next one doesn’t.

We sleep on tatami mats at home, so this isn’t a big stretch for us.

Our machiya is very small, but it still has the traditional interior garden, albeit a minuscule one.

We’re here in February, perhaps the lowest of the low season. But there’s no real low season anymore, Kyoto is high on many traveler’s lists. And for damn good reason. It was the capital of Japan for 1100 years, starting in 794, and it was largely spared by WW II bombings. That is not to say you won’t find plenty of modernity, but the culture per square kilometer ratio is exceedingly high.

For once, political tensions are working in our favor. Japan and China are at odds over Taiwan. That coupled with February means the historic center is relatively sparsely populated. We revisited our old neighbourhood, where we stayed a month 10 years ago and found it just as we’d left it.

This is Gion, the geisha district. We ducked down alleys where there was no one. There are also no pictures. The locals are tired of the instagram dance and have put up signs forbidding photography.