Kyoto presents itself to the world as Japan's most refined city, the home of wabi sabi understated elegance. It is the home of tea and temples, gardens and geisha, koto and kimono, craftsmen and both old and new Japanese cool think Nintendo. Even the Kyoto dialect , thought to descend from the imperial retinue and aristocracy, is to this day considered the most refined form of spoken Japanese.
It needs to be stated, for the umpteenth time, that geisha and maiko are not prostitutes; they are highly trained performers. Until , when prostitution was made illegal in Japan, every city in Japan had red light areas. The place still exists, but today there is nothing particularly sordid about it. Several of the former red light areas however have reinvented themselves, often playing a cat-and-mouse game with authorities and official laws, statues, and regulations.
CycleKyoto does not profess profound expertise in this area, but here are some of our favorite sordid spots in Kyoto. The ride starts south of Kyoto Station. This area was once a slum and is close to areas where Koreans and Japan's traditional underclass, the Burakumin, still live. Within this mix is the DX Toji Theater , an old school strip tease joint. No touching or onstage fornicating permitted — in the good old pre-AIDS days, an anything goes atmosphere prevailed — but paid photography is allowed.
In Gojo Rakuen many of the older tea houses and buildings still stand, giving one an idea of what the pre scene must have been like. There are however no brothels here today. Though not frozen in time, Gojo Rakuen still has 15 tea houses, a kabuki theater, and quite a few older buildings.
In the Taisho Period - , its heyday, it stretched south all the way to Shichijo Dori. For those who do not read Japanese, telltale signs include the following: bright often pink signs with numbers that denote cost and time; a male tout, often in a white shirt and tie, standing next to such a sign; men, usually alone, entering and exiting quickly with their heads down.
