Kyoto is the best place in Japan to buy traditional crafts. The obvious starting point is Nishiki Market, a 400-year-old covered arcade in the centre of the city running five blocks east from Teramachi — nominally a food market but full of pickle shops, knife shops, lacquerware, and century-old family businesses selling yatsuhashi (cinnamon rice-flour sweets) and bonito flakes. The streets around Kiyomizu-dera, especially Sannen-zaka and Ninen-zaka, are lined with shops selling pottery, fans, incense and the traditional indigo-dyed textiles that Kyoto is famous for. For something modern, Shijō-dōri is the main department-store strip, with Daimaru, Takashimaya and the big Japanese chains. Serious buyers of ceramics should look in the potteries around Gojō-zaka and along Chawan-zaka (Teapot Lane), the historic kilns of the Kiyomizu-yaki tradition. Incense is a classic Kyoto souvenir — Shoyeido and Kyukyodo, both with centuries of history, have their main shops here.