Imamiya Shrine

Imamiya Jinja · 今宮神社 (いまみやじんじゃ)

The smell reaches you before the shrine does. Charcoal smoke and roasted soy sauce, sweet and savory at once, drifting through the stone torii from somewhere just out of sight. You round the corner and there they are: two tiny shops facing each other across the approach path, both grilling small rice cakes on bamboo skewers over open charcoal, both painting them with a thick, amber-colored miso glaze that bubbles and blackens at the edges. An old woman on the left turns her skewers with practiced flicks of the wrist. Across the path, her competitor does exactly the same thing. They have been doing this — both of them, facing each other — for longer than most countries have existed.

About Imamiya Shrine

Imamiya Shrine sits in the Murasakino district of northern Kyoto, a residential neighborhood of narrow streets, small gardens, and very few tourists. The shrine was established in 994, during a period when plague was ravaging the capital, as a place to pray for the cessation of disease. Its origins are practical rather than imperial — this was not a shrine built by emperors but by ordinary people desperate for protection against illness and death. That populist character has never entirely faded. Even now, Imamiya feels less like a monument and more like a neighborhood institution, the kind of place where the local residents know the priests by name and drop in on their morning walk to offer a quick prayer before continuing to the bakery.

The shrine grounds are spacious and strikingly quiet. A long, gravel-covered approach runs from the main torii gate through a corridor of mature trees to the main worship hall, which sits in a clearing surrounded by smaller auxiliary shrines. The architecture is handsome but understated — dark wood, clean lines, none of the gilded excess you find at wealthier shrine complexes. During midweek visits, you may find yourself entirely alone in the compound, with nothing but the crunch of gravel under your feet and the distant sound of a crow calling from somewhere in the cedars.

The shrine’s most famous historical connection is to Keishoin, the mother of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, the fifth Tokugawa shogun. Born into a humble family in the Murasakino neighborhood — some accounts say her father was a greengrocer — Keishoin prayed at Imamiya Shrine for fortune before entering service at the shogun’s court, where she eventually became a consort and bore the future shogun. Her story transformed Imamiya into a symbol of dramatic social advancement, and the shrine is still associated with good fortune in matters of marriage and upward mobility. The phrase “tama no koshi” — literally “jeweled palanquin,” meaning a marriage that elevates one’s social status — is closely associated with this place.

Getting There

The Mochi Rivalry

The two aburi mochi shops outside Imamiya Shrine are the real reason most Kyoto residents come here, and their rivalry is one of the city’s most enduring and endearing traditions. On the east side of the approach sits Ichiwa, which claims to have been in continuous operation for over a thousand years — making it one of the oldest commercial establishments on Earth. Across the path sits Kazariya, a relative newcomer founded in 1637, which means it has only been open for about four centuries. Both serve the same thing: small balls of mochi (pounded rice cake) threaded onto bamboo skewers, grilled over charcoal, and coated with a sweet white miso sauce.

The experience of eating aburi mochi here is almost absurdly simple and almost impossibly satisfying. You sit on a bench under the eaves, or on tatami inside during cold weather, and a plate of skewers arrives within minutes. The mochi is slightly charred on the outside from the charcoal, soft and chewy inside, and the miso glaze is salty-sweet with a depth of flavor that comes from the roasting process — the sugars in the miso caramelizing against the heat. A serving costs around five hundred yen and comes with tea. The portions are small enough that visiting both shops in a single trip is not only possible but expected. Locals have fierce opinions about which shop is superior, and the debate has been running for centuries with no resolution in sight.

Both shops close irregularly and can be affected by weather or holidays, so there is always a small element of gamble in making the trip. But finding both open, sitting down for a plate of skewers still warm from the grill, and watching the smoke rise from the charcoal between the two shopfronts — this is one of the most genuinely timeless food experiences available in Kyoto. Nothing about it has changed in any meaningful way for hundreds of years. The mochi is the same. The charcoal is the same. The two shops still face each other across the same narrow path, locked in their gentle, eternal competition.

The Wish-Fulfilling Stone

Within the shrine grounds, near the main hall, sits the yasuraiishi — a stone with a curious ritual attached to it. The procedure goes like this: first, tap the stone three times. Then try to lift it. Note how heavy it feels. Now rub the top of the stone while making your wish. Try to lift it again. If the stone feels lighter the second time, your wish will be granted. If it feels heavier, the answer is not yet. The ritual is simple enough that children can do it, and specific enough that it feels like a genuine divination rather than a generic blessing. On any given day, you will see people of all ages crouching beside the stone with expressions of intense concentration, testing the weight, making their wish, and lifting again with a mix of hope and skepticism.

Yasurai Matsuri

Imamiya’s most distinctive annual event is the Yasurai Matsuri, held on the second Sunday of April. It is one of Kyoto’s three great strange festivals (the others being the Kurama Fire Festival and the Ushi Matsuri at Koryuji). The festival features performers dressed as demons with wild red hair and elaborate costumes, dancing through the streets of Murasakino to the beat of drums and flutes. The purpose is to pacify the spirits of disease that were believed to spread when cherry blossoms scattered — a direct connection to the shrine’s origins as a place of plague prevention. The procession passes through the residential neighborhood before returning to the shrine, and watching it from the narrow streets, with the demon dancers leaping and spinning just meters away, is visceral and strange in the best possible way. The festival draws almost no foreign visitors, and the crowd is entirely neighborhood-based — families with children, elderly residents in folding chairs, shopkeepers watching from their doorways.

Insider Tips

Nearby Spots

Two rival shops, one ancient stone, a shrine that has guarded against plague for a thousand years — Imamiya is the Kyoto that exists after you stop following the guidebook and start following the smell of charcoal smoke.

Last updated: 2026-03-03