Secrets Behind Nijo-jo - A series of surveys and researches of tour and travel by following its business

Nijo-jo, the site of Shogun Tokugawa leyasu’s castle, is a short bus or taxi ride up Horikawa-dori. The bus stop is called Nijo-jo mae, “in front of Nijo Castle.” It is impossible to miss, the moat, the white wall blocks along, the massive gate will tip you off. And yet, there’s no castle here. The five-story castle keep that once stood here (like the ones still standing in Osaka and Himeji) burned to the ground in the 18th century.

What there is to see instead is perhaps more splendid. The shogun’s reception palace, where he entertained the emperor, and received his vassals from around the country, survives perfectly intact from the early 17th century. The first glimpse of the building, framed in the Karamon Gate, is a dramatic moment. The drama continues within, where room after room of Kano school screen paintings depicting tigers, cranes and pines on gold leaf backgrounds, exquisitely carved and decorated transoms, shelves and coffered ceilings lead toward the shogun’s inner chambers. The palace is veritable textbook of feudal Japan, its every lavish detail bearing significance in the code of daily life around the military hegemon.

Just around the corner from Nijo-jo (but these are big Kyoto blocks, a 15 minutes walk) is Nijo Jinya. This 17th-century building was built as an inn for daimyo (landowning) lords visiting Kyoto. Seen from the outside, Nijo Jinya is the very antithesis of its grand neighbor, so modest in fact, that you may pass it by accident. It hides many secrets behind its quiet exterior. The 24 rooms of the inn are all equipped with hidden escape passages and ingenious devices that would impress Houdini.