Kyoto Nishiki Market Food and Culture Walking Tour

Nishiki Market Shopping District

Soak up the sights, sounds, and smells, and learn about local food culture in this 400-year-old market with 130 shops all along a narrow five-block long street. This market still functions as an important place for both locals and professional chefs. Many chefs of Michelin-star restaurants and hotels/ryokans buy their ingredients from this market everyday. Locals come to the market when they want real atuhentic ingredients with best quality. While wandering through the market and sampling various kind of foods, you will learn about Japanese foods, local specialties, and food culture. Let's enjoy the market, not only foods but also all food related shops such as kitchen knives, tableware, and chopsticks.

Nishiki Tenmangu

Visiting a local Shinto shrine. You will learn about things you often find at a shrine and how to pray at a Japanese Shinto shrine. Also, you could know the basics about the worships among Japanese People. If you like, you can try a fortune paper.

Teramachi-dori Street

You will feel the life of the local people while walking through this local shopping street, where various shops from long-established shops to the latest shops line up.

Takoyakushido Eifukuji Temple

A small Buddhist temple located at the corner of the shopping street. There are temples everywhere in Kyoto, so this is something local experience that you can feel temples close to you in everyday life.

Have some drink and sit in an open space in this renovated elementary school. This place is filled with the modern history of Kyoto; how this area was once important and lively, the time of modernization, and how this elementary was built. The guide will tell you the story about this place and Kyoto while you are enjoying a cup of drink.