Shimabara

photo by KeraKera55 · CC BY-SA 4.0

The Sumiya is the only *ageya* left in Japan: the house for banquets, not for living in.

Today it is a block of ordinary houses, and of the three things that remain, the first you come across is the wooden gate at the entrance to the district. Inside the Sumiya you take off your shoes and go round the ground floor; to go up to the first floor you pay for a second ticket, and only at fixed times. The Wachigaiya, a little further on, is still in business: it can only be seen from outside.

Kyoto's licensed pleasure quarter from 1640. Three things remain of it: the wooden gate, the Shimabara Ōmon; the Sumiya, the only surviving *ageya* in Japan (the house where banquets were held, not the one where people lived), an Important Cultural Property since 1952 and now a museum; and the Wachigaiya, which the house itself states was founded in 1688 and rebuilt in 1857, still a working teahouse today.

ℹ️ The Sumiya can be visited as a museum, 10:00–15:30, with seasonal opening windows stated by the museum itself: ¥1,000 for the ground floor (¥800 students, ¥500 children) and another ¥1,000 for the first floor (¥700 students), which can be seen only at 10:15, 13:15, 14:15 and 15:15. Guided tours are by booking for groups of twenty to thirty people; on the ground floor they start every hour from 10:30. ⚠️ The Wachigaiya cannot be visited: it opens only for special openings at irregular intervals, every few years, and it cannot be planned for. ⚠️ The station is Tambaguchi, not Kyoto Station.

🚉 Umekoji-Kyotonishi · 7 min walk

Sources: sumiyaho.sakura.ne.jp

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