Three things you can only do in Kyoto

Hear an android preach

Mindar is an android form of the bodhisattva Kannon, built with Osaka University roboticist Ishiguro Hiroshi and unveiled at Kōdai-ji in March 2019. It gives a sermon on the Heart Sutra in the temple's Kyōke Hall, with projection mapping.

It has no AI: the 25 minute sermon was written by the temple's monks. It appears only on set dates, mostly weekends, so check before you go. Reactions are famously split between moved and appalled, and that argument is part of the visit.

Eat at the sweet shop Guinness lists as the world's oldest

Ichiwa sits at the east gate of Imamiya Shrine, with the founding family still running it, and it serves one item: aburi-mochi. Guinness lists it as the oldest sweet shop in the world. The founding year of about 1000 CE is tradition, so take that part as attributed, but the title is a Guinness one.

Thumb-sized mochi on bamboo skewers are dusted in kinako, grilled over charcoal at the shopfront to order, and drowned in sweet white-miso sauce. A plate is 11 skewers. The dish began as an offering against epidemic, so eat it after the shrine.

Across the lane, Kazariya sells the same dish and is said to have split from Ichiwa in 1637. Residents have loyalties, and comparing the two is the local sport.

Stand in a fire character

The 大 of the Gozan Okuribi is lit at 20:00 on 16 August on Daimonji-yama. On any other day you can hike about an hour to the open fire beds where it is lit, stand in the stroke of the character, and look straight down it over the city.

The fire beds are treeless, which also makes them the best free panorama on the east side of the city. The way up starts just north of Ginkaku-ji, and it is free and always open. There is a sign at the beds: no fire, no cigarettes.