Kyoto Imperial Palace Tour

The Kyoto Imperial Palace is a huge walled compound containing several buildings built in the classical Japanese style.  You have to apply in advance to go on a tour of the palace grounds.  Our tour was scheduled for 2 p.m.  We were supposed to arrive early, but unfortunately, because we were trying to spend as much time as we could at Nijo Castle, we got there right at 2 p.m.  Our tour had already gone ahead, and the desk was giving us a hard time until they realized that we had applied ahead of time for permission to go on the tour and had our passports in hand.  Then, they bent over backwards to get us caught up with our group, even radioing ahead to the security to make them aware that a large and crazy American family was coming their way to meet the tour.

The first thing we saw when we met up with our tour group was these three "waiting rooms".  This is the Tiger Room.....

...this is the Crane Room.....

...and this was the Cherry Blossom's room.  You were put into one of these rooms to await your meeting with the Emperor.  The room that you would be put in to wait would depend on your social class.  The ranking order from the highest to lowest was: Tiger’s room, Crane’s room, Cherry blossom’s room.
At this point of our tour, it began to rain.....our guide brought out a barrel of umbrellas for the tour group to borrow while on the tour.  Yay!

This is the Kenreimon Gate, the main gate of the Kyoto Imperial Palace, and is used when the Emperor visits the palace. It is also used on the occasion of the Emperor’s welcoming of foreign dignitaries.  In the early 1990's, President George Bush came to Kyoto and came through this door to meet the Emperor.

The Shishinden is the most important structure on the palace grounds and was used for important ceremonies such as enthronement ceremonies and meeting with dignitaries. It was built in the Imperial Palace style with high flooring. Inside there are the Imperial thrones for the Emperor and the Empress.  Both thrones were brought to the Tokyo Imperial Palace for the ceremony of the enthronement of His Majesty Emperor Akihito in 1990.

In front of the structure is a large open courtyard covered with white gravel. On either side of its main stairway are planted trees, a cherry tree on the left to the east, and a mandarin tree on the right to the west.  The orange tree was enclosed because of fear of frostbite.

Both the main gate and the Shishinden are facing south.  This is because south is considered to be a lucky direction.  All good luck and good spirits come from the south.  The most unlucky direction is northeast.  Our guide told us that the palace grounds are in a large rectangle, but the northeast corner is cut out....there is no northeast corner to the grounds.  Instead of the corner, they have a large stone warrior statue placed there to help fight off evil spirits.  There are also many shrines and temples on the mountain to the northeast of the Imperial Palace to fight off evil spirits.

We see this symbol all over...our guide told us that this is the "symbol of Japan".

This gate was for the Empress and the princes.  They can't use the Emperor's gate.

Our guide explained to us how they make the interesting roofs on many of the buildings.  They are made by layering many layers of cypress bark.  The cypress tree is unique in that the bark will just peel off.  This will not hurt the tree in any way.  Japanese people will peel off the bark and layer it to make the roofs.  They make nails out of bamboo.  Our guide told us that around 30 layers is normal and the roof will last for around 20 years.  Then, they have to take it off and start the layering process all over again.

The Seiryoden building was built with lower flooring, and has the cypress bark roof (as does just about every building on the palace grounds).  In the center, is an Imperial throne. In front of the throne, there are thick tatami mats which were used as the seat for the Emperor during the daytime.  This building is where the Emperor would conduct a lot of daily business.

Our guide told us that the inside is one big room, and there are sliding walls to separate the large room into smaller rooms.  The summer would be very hot, and the winter was cold.  They would have the sliding doors covered with washi paper to help keep the cold out in the winter and the heat out in the summer, but of course that didn't work very well. To keep warm, the Imperial family would put on layer after layer of silk robes.
It is also very dark inside.  To aid in being able to be seen in the dark, many people would paint their faces white before visiting the Emperor.  In the Shinto belief system, white is a special color that represents purity, beauty and happiness.  This is thought to be where the geisha got the idea to paint their faces white as part of their attire.

This is the Oikeniwa Garden which features a large pond with a strolling pathway around the pond. 

It was really pretty.

This was used as a ceremonial hall as well as where the Emperor met the Shogun and daimyo (feudal lords). This is where the details for how the Shogun was going to transfer power back to the Emperor was discussed and decided before and after he officially gave up control of Japan at Nijo Castle. 

 This was the place where the academic events were held such as Waka poetry recitals.  This gravel area is where many games and sports were played.  Queen Elizabeth stood on these stairs when she visited Japan in the 1980's. 

The largest building on the palace grounds was the Emperor's private residence.  The Empress and the princes lived in a different house....we were not told where the princesses lived.  All of the separate houses were connected by hallways.  The hallways had white tatami mats on the floors.  There were red ribbons covering the seams for the tatami mats.  The tatami mats were white, again, as a symbol of purity and happiness.  In Japan, white and red together are seen as a very nice color combination.....think of the Japanese flag.
The Emperor's private residence has 15 rooms.  There are sliding walls to divide the large residence into the 15 rooms.  Each of the sliding walls and doors are decorated with beautiful artwork.  They are shown only a few times a year, but they keep two on display at all times.  This is the first one that we were shown.....

....and this is the second one.  They are very old art pieces and very special to the Japanese.

This is the Emperor’s private garden which has a tea house situated at the back of the garden.

This is the Emperor’s private residence from afar.  Notice the cypress roof.  Emperor Meiji lived here for a time until he moved to Tokyo.  It was at this point of our tour that the rain lifted.

Our tour took an hour.  It went by really fast for some of us and really slow for others.  We were given a ton of information in a short time and learned a lot about Japan.  The palace was not as regal as some of us thought it was going to be.  It was certainly much less ornate than Nijo Castle....but, the Emperor was not in power during the time that Kyoto was the capital of Japan.  He was more of a figure.  The Shogunate was in charge at the time, and we could see the stark contrast of power, money, and slave labor when we compared the beauty of both Nijo Castle and the Imperial Palace.  The Imperial family was well taken care of, but it was clear that they did not have the power. 

We got on our bikes and headed to our next stop.  This picture is the river that runs through Kyoto.  We crossed it many times and biked parallel to it a few times as we made our way around to the different sites.  It was a very peaceful and enjoyable place to bike, and certainly better than trying to weave through the throngs of people walking on the sidewalks.