---
title: Kyoto City
url: https://karigurashijourney.com/en/places/kyoto/
lang: en
---

# Kyoto City

Travel journal from Kyoto City, with 18 notes on the places I ate, the dishes I cooked and the sights: Shimogamo Shrine (Kamomioya-jinja), Takase River, Gion Shinbashi and the banks of the Shirakawa, Kyoto-style ozoni (white miso New Year soup).

## Journeys

- [Making New Year's Eve soba in a Kyoto townhouse](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/episodes/kyoto-soba/index.md): Try making Toshikoshi soba（2023-12-31）
- [An ordinary morning in a hundred-year-old Kyoto townhouse](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/episodes/kyoto-machiya/index.md): Kyoto Machiya Stay（2023-01-25）

## Cook the local flavors once more

- [Kyoto-style ozoni (white miso New Year soup)](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/kyoto-style-ozoni/index.md): Ozoni in and around Kyoto is built on kombu dashi and white miso, with round mochi, taro, carrot and daikon.
- [Osechi (datemaki, red-and-white namasu, decorated kamaboko)](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/osechi/index.md): Each osechi dish carries a wish.
- [Toshikoshi soba (nihachi soba)](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/toshikoshi-soba/index.md): The custom of eating soba on New Year's Eve is said to have spread among ordinary people in the Edo period.
- [Oyakodon (chicken and egg over rice)](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/oyakodon/index.md): Chicken and onion simmered in broth, bound with egg and served over rice.
- [Bubu-zuke (ochazuke from a monaka wafer)](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/bubu-zuke/index.md): In Kyoto, ochazuke is called bubu-zuke.

## A little of each town’s story

- [Shimogamo Shrine (Kamomioya-jinja)](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/shimogamo-shrine/index.md): Its official name is Kamomioya-jinja.
- [Takase River](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/takase-river/index.md): A canal running alongside the Kamo River.
- [Kagami-mochi](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/kagami-mochi/index.md): Kagami-mochi is the offering made when welcoming Toshigami, the deity of the new year, and every part of its decoration has a meaning.
- [Kyomachiya, the Kyoto townhouse](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/kyomachiya-the-kyoto-townhouse/index.md): Under Kyoto City's ordinance, a kyomachiya is a wooden building of traditional structure and form built before 1950, when the Building Standards Act came into force.
- [Gion Shinbashi and the banks of the Shirakawa](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/gion-shinbashi-and-the-banks/index.md): The Gion Motoyoshi-cho area along Shinbashi-dori, north of Gion, was designated a national Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings on September 4, 1976, as a teahouse town…
- [A plum-blossom-shaped ochazuke monaka](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/plum-blossom-shaped-ochazuke-monaka/index.md): A plum-blossom-shaped monaka wafer that turns into ochazuke when you set it on rice and pour hot water over it.

## Places we stopped along the way

- [Kyogoku Kaneyo](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/kyogoku-kaneyo/index.md): An eel restaurant said to date from the Meiji era (some say the Taisho era), in a wooden building that keeps the look of its early days.
- [Izuman](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/izuman/index.md): A kamaboko maker founded in 1844 and said to be the oldest in Kyoto.
- [Kamo Mitarashi Chaya](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/kamo-mitarashi-chaya/index.md): A teahouse founded in 1922, across Shimogamo-hondori from Shimogamo Shrine.
- [Sauna no Umeyu](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/sauna-no-umeyu/index.md): A bathhouse founded in the Meiji era, on the banks of the Takase River.
- [Tenkaippin Sohonten (Main Shop)](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/tenkaippin-sohonten/index.md): The first shop of Tenkaippin, the ramen chain born in Kyoto.
- [Toraya Karyo Kyoto Ichijo](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/toraya-karyo-kyoto-ichijo/index.md): Toraya's tearoom in Kyoto, the city where the confectioner was founded.
- [Tohkasaikan (Main Restaurant)](https://karigurashijourney.com/en/notes/tohkasaikan/index.md): A Beijing-cuisine restaurant at the west end of Shijo Bridge.