At least in America, Kyoto is perceived as the cultural heart of Japan, and the inevitable goal of any trip to the country; it’s the nation’s Rome or Paris, with a long and illustrious history that gives its citizens and nation pride and provides an incredible abundance of things for domestic and international visitors to see. Someone once told me that the least site in Rome would be the main attraction anywhere else; that observation would apply to Kyoto nicely.

Osaka is conveniently only a few dollars and half an hour away from Kyoto by that pervasive transportation means the train, so I planned from the start to make frequent hops over to the city for some quality time before visiting on more dedicated stints. My first such day trip took place during the 5-day weekend you’re already familiar with if you’re up to date, the day after my trip to Nara with coworkers.

To fill in newcomers, a 5-day weekend is ironically a terrible time to travel because of the hordes of others who do the same. Japanese businesspeople don’t get much time off, just two weeks of the year and everyone at the same time, and Japanese people by and large seem to love to travel within the country and without, so an unusual confluence of 3 holidays to form a 5-day weekend is a call for mass exodus to the cultural centers of the country.

With this in mind I decided that I would try to visit those sites in the city, of which there are countless, that are not the central draws. The main attraction to foreign and domestic visitors is the forests of Higashiyama, which are filled with priceless temples built or further developed during Kyoto’s heyday as the capitol of Tokugawa Japan. In that time temples were generally segregated into discrete regions outside the city due to Tokugawa Ieyasu’s and many of his descendant’s fears of the power of various Buddhist sects. As a result, the forests of the mountains immediately east of Kyoto are rife with cultural treasures and irreplaceable experiences (and UNESCO agrees, making the whole lot a world heritage site). So I avoided the region for this particular visit; I certainly intended to return and felt that there was more to the experience that might be marred by the throng of visitors than just seeing the temples. Reading my post on Himeji (following this one) I think you’ll understand the distinction I’m getting at.

I also sought to avoid the major sites frequented by mostly domestic travelers (to be honest, having taken a few trips around the country now I can say that there are far, far more domestic tourists than foreigners. In fact, for the most part there are not that many white tourists, although it is probably worse in the spring and summer, and those that there are are mostly Australians…), like Kinkaku-ji and Tenryu-ji (although having a bit extra time I did end up going to Tenryu-ji late in the afternoon, just before closing).

So I saw three sites in Kyoto on this little trip and was handsomely rewarded for my choices, but before I get to that a couple observations on the city itself. First, Kyoto is blessed in its surroundings. The city is bordered (and its growth constrained) by gorgeous, forested mountains. The city of course is not right out of a Kurosawa film, it has modernized and the bulk of the city is urban Japan like anywhere else. Nevertheless, the roots of the city are still apparent in the countless little locations that have maintained the feel of a long and enduring history, and the undeveloped mountains are stunning, like nearly every nameless range you roll through on the train in this country, with all the businessmen paying no nevermind to the awe inspiring vistas of rain clouds lifting up like a fog over mountains carpeted with dewy pines (I’m on the train to Tokyo right now, and that’s exactly what’s going down). Japan amazes me in its ability to maintain majestic natural beauty and relentlessly modern urbanism in close proximity. I should say that such temples and shrines and gardens are not merely holdovers from a bygone era, to be wondered at with a degree of romanticism (Himeji-jo is closer to that), these are locations that embody what life in Japan was like for millennia and what forms the core of Japanese life today. Shrines and temples are used and prayed at, and the interior of many modern homes look not unlike their ancient ancestors. A family trip to Koto-in is to relax under the bamboo shoots, not to revel at an ancient and lost way of life. Japan like every nation of the world has gone through considerable change over its history, especially in the modern era, but it is important to remember that this country was largely isolated for an extremely long period of time, and totally isolated for 250 years from 1600 on; I suspect that the close ties of even today’s everyday-Japan with the cultures, traditions, and lifestyle of the previous millenium is a consequence of this domestic-centric evolution of the nation. For example, temples built in the last millennium have been renovated every hundred years or so since, but every new construction has been an exact replica of the previous structure, just replacing old wood, paint, ornamentation, etc.. In fact to the untrained eye (or the average Japanese person) the changes in architectural style over the last millennium are unnoticeable, especially when compared to other variations (religious sect, regional culture, etc.).

Anyway, getting to the point, here’s how the day went. Everything said and done I didn’t roll into Kyoto station until around 11. At that point I’d read up on all the sites in Kyoto but had still made no decisions on what I was going to see, so I stopped by a café and got a cup of coffee to mull over my options. I already had an idea of what would be too busy on that day, and I had already figured what sites I wanted to see, so it was only a  few minutes before I picked a circuit that looked promising.

On transportation, while many large Japanese cities thrive on an extensive and efficient subway system, Kyoto’s native underground is insufficient to handle the mass of visitors, and as a consequence an effective bus system has been developed. I highly recommend that any visitors to Kyoto get a bus day pass, it’s only 5 bucks, you take the bus everywhere, and if you don’t buy it (like me) then you pay 2 bucks every ride, which adds up fast when you have to change here or there. In either case, my first stop was way up in the northern portion of Kyoto, 30m by bus, Shimogamo Jinja. Jinja denotes shrine, not –ji which indicates a temple (Otera). I planned to make a walking circuit from there a bit north to Kyoto’s botanical gardens, then west to the Daitoku-ji temple complex. Didn’t go exactly according to plan but what does.

In either case I arrived at Shimagamo Jinja to find an interesting crowd. Mostly it was locals coming to enjoy the public park and make a quick ring of the bell and double clap at the shrine for good luck. As I said, the shrines and temples of this nation are very much ‘lived in’ in the sense that you get businessmen stopping by after work, families swinging in while out for a walk, etc. In this case there was also a wedding going on, or at least a crowd of people from a wedding and a wedding photographer.

(A note on the vids, you may notice that the height is strange and the balance terrible, it’s because I hold the cam at chest height so as to attempt to attract the least amount of attention, that being relative of course)

On that note Christian weddings are very big here. It’s not like anyone’s Christian, it’s just that Christian weddings with the white dress in a church are very popular right now. That ties into the Japanese perception of religion in general, which I don’t have time to get into now but I find very appealing. I’ll probably comment on it further at some later point.

Anyway, Shimogamo Jinja was nice, the buildings are modern-ish, rebuilt every couple hundred years as exact reproductions of the original design in the 10^th century or somewhere abouts, so the compound has an interesting feel to it being well-kept and ancient at the same time. There’s not much to say on it, take a look at the pics (as a reminder, clicking on any photos in the blog will bring you to relevant flickr sets or collections).

I walked about the grounds’ several shrines, picked a big one, tossed my coin in, rang the bell, took my bow and made my claps (I’ve been surprised, by the way, at how hard it is to control the sound of a symmetrical clap). The grounds were pleasant enough with many well-kept shrines, including a river one set in a little creek, and all told the place was a nice experience. The park outside the shrine gates is also good for a stroll, but on the whole I’d say Shimogamo Jinja, Sumiyoshi Taisha, and most shrines in common use I’ve seen are pretty much the same deal. Nice to visit if you’re in the city, stop by from time to time if you live there, but never worth a trip in itself.

Daitoku-ji, by contrast, is unquestionably worth putting forth time and effort to visit. Before getting there however, I had some ideas and a plan. As I mentioned, I was going to head up northwest by foot to the botanical gardens and then cut west to Daitoku-ji, about 20 minutes each leg (heh, pun). If you’ve read my comments in an early post on getting around Japanese cities, however, you can guess where this is going. My map had only nominal coverage of the area I was in, with no street names and only a few major roads and the river indicated. Still, the botanical gardens were along the river to the north, so how hard could it be to find? Well when I stopped by a real estate agency to ask directions and they had no idea, I knew there might be a problem. I worked my way west until I hit the river, but much to my chagrin found that there were in fact 2 rivers that forked, and which of them was the one on my map was impossible  to discern. Using the general orientations of the roads on the map would have worked nicely in any other country, but that’s not how the Japanese roll. You see, maps in Japan like to have straight lines, but roads in Japan like to curve and wander. As you might imagine, this poses some very pragmatic issues. Angles and distances on maps are more of a rough approximation than actually useful representations. Additionally, ‘major roads’ are a loose definition, and without proper name indications on maps, roads, or both the roads that are on the map are indistinguishable from those not shown. This all really frustrates me because I love maps, I love the sense of a place they give me, with the ability to organize disparate locations into a cohesive picture and infer the spatial relations between things. So after asking a jogger where the place was and having them point me west which I knew was wrong, I said fuck it and made my way west to Daitoku-ji with a few more requests for directions and a street vendor’s okonomiyaki.

So, Daitoku-ji. Again, pictures speak a thousand words and I’ve got movies up as well, so to get an idea of what the place is (but not really what it’s like) those’ll do a better job than I can. Still, I’m not using a nice Nikon DSLR or my old OM-2 film SLR, so despite my best efforts the P&S images, with their low dynamic range,  can’t do much to capture a sense of these places. I really don’t think they can take you there. Even so, they should provide some context for what I present.

Anyway, Daitoku-ji is a temple complex consisting of hundreds of small temple grounds, the vast majority of which are not open to the public. The main arteries feature some nice wide pebble roads with slab stone footpaths that take you around the grounds. You can pop into temples that are open to visitors and appreciate the gardens or temple proper, often with calligraphic works, stone sculptures, bonsai, flowers, or other effects that are appropriate for the scene. That is the central concept in each of these temples, a cohesive atmosphere generated by the convergence of a thousand unnoticed subtleties. Experiencing those gardens and temples is just like looking at a powerful masterpiece painting that transports you to an experience or emotion. The contrast between the carefully but naturally crafted environments and mere copies on their theme is stark and obvious, as I’ll describe in my next post on Himeji’s Kokoen gardens. All of this sensation culminated at the last temple I visited, Koto-in, set in a small bamboo forest.

It's a trap (look closer at the bonsai)

It was here I found myself enjoying the soft rustle of bamboo shoots in the wind on the porch of a quiet temple room opened up to the gardens, sitting alongside others who had come to while away some time in the shade. Again it was families, businessmen, teenage couples. People looking for neither a spiritual venture or a tourist spectacle, just a quiet afternoon in a place where they feel perfectly natural and at home.

Needless to say, I had found something at Daitoku-ji that I would compare many past and coming experiences to. The bottom line is that while some temples, like Daibutsu-den in Nara, are sites to be seen, many are experiences to be indulged in and should be ventured on, if possible, at times when things are quiet and you can take them in at your leisure. I’ll be happy to return to Kyoto and other locales in the winter when I finish at DA.

Once I had finished at Koto-in it was about 4PM so catching any more temples before the usual 4:30 closing was seeming unlikely. Still, the big and famous Tenryu-ji in Arashiyama (the mountain-temple region of northwestern Kyoto) was open til 6:30 so I thought I’d give that a go. 30 minutes and two buses later I was among the throng of visitors at the thick tourist shopping area by the bus stop at Tenryu-ji. Fortunately, as I made my way up the path to the temple grounds I found I was moving against the grain, with most people working their way back to wherever is home.

There were a variety of walled Buddhist compounds, silent and nameless, along the way with a few doors slightly ajar. When I arrived at the at the renowned temple I found two entrances, one to the interior and one to the garden. I had about an hour before closing so I figured I’d hit both, starting with the garden because that’s always what you’re there to see.

If it isn’t clear by now, a Japanese garden is more of a small dense park than what we usually describe as gardens in the western world. These ‘gardens’ as I call them from an ignorance of the English language are much more arboreal and generally on a more human scale. They’re crafted of stone and wood and water. Their density, even though they never feel too busy or chaotic,  is such that you can become entirely removed just feet away from a busy street. This is of course the ideal situation, and while it isn’t always met Koto-in and Tenryu-ji certainly deliver.

Tenryu-ji’s grounds are fairly large with everything from small ponds and waterfalls to muse over to grand mountain vistas to be awed by. So I took an intensely pleasant stroll through the grounds in the fading light and then moved on to the temple proper, which is really just a series of porches and pathways from which to enjoy the grounds, but must be separate as that area, however exposed, is ‘indoors,’ as opposed to ‘outdoors.’ In most situations and certainly in structural ones that distinction is definitively made in Japanese culture.

As the compound is on the eastern slope of the mountain the setting sun was masked which gave the last half hour a real dusky grey light which, coupled with a cool breeze lifting the heat, gave me my second utterly relaxing and contemplative experience that day.

It’s hard to know what confluence of forces put me in that precise mindset at those precise moments, but if it is purely the temples doing it, I can see why people become monks. It is a static joy you feel, a place where you’re certainly not bored and certainly not anxious. You’re happy and you really don’t mind staying even if you’re just sitting there. All told though, the most I’ve been like that is an hour before having to pack up and go, so how long the sensation lasts I don’t know.

So there you have my first venture to Kyoto, I think you’ll find the following trip to Himeji provides some interesting contrasts.

As a post-script, sorry for popping in and out of past tense, it’s what happens when you write posts weeks after the fact, adding retrospective commentary to a present-tense commentary. Plus I’ve got no time to properly edit so you’ll have to deal with it. Really I should just write all the posts from a future perspective, but hey, I write them at a lot of different times in a lot of different places so consistency hasn’t been big. Most of the posts so far haven’t been written as a single whole, I just write things from time to time in different places, not even about consecutive events, and then try and fit them all together into something mildly cohesive.

Japan, like the Euro nations, has the 1USD ppp equivalent denomination is solely in coin form. In Japan the smallest bill is 10, and in Euro it’s 5. I remember this idea getting tossed about in the states from time to time, with the argument generally falling between the federal money saved by shifting towards coinage (coins last far longer than bills, requiring less frequent replacement) versus the inconvenience of having to care about change.

Experiencing the Japanese monetary system, where 10USD equivalent is the smallest bill denomination, I can tell you it is far more convenient to have high value coinage.

Here’s how it goes. Even in the smallest of my jean pockets I can surprisingly easily throw in and pull out change, including 100 and 500 yen coins (100 yen is roughly 1USD). Then I just fold a few tens, maybe a fifty if I’m leaving town, and put those in a second pocket, not even in my wallet or money clip if I had one. Most small things (coffee, snacks, incidentals, etc.) I just pull out a handful of change. Since different coins are different sizes, colors, etc. mustering exact change from whatever I pull out of the pocket is easy and takes half a moment. If I get a meal or something, I just pull out a ten or two, whatever’s appropriate. Since there’s only really one bill denomination, I don’t have to fiddle with or separate bills (I don’t fold the bills together, just keep them separate so I can take out howevermany I want).

I’m finding that 20 dollars is a useless denomination, tens are far more convenient since most things I buy are somewhere between five and ten bucks, and anything over that I just pull out two tens, its really not that hard. For big purchases I just use 50s. This seems like a pretty elaborate description I know, but I’m trying (and probably failing) to convey that the monetary system here is much more convenient in the day-to-day than it is in the states. Dollar bills are unnecessary, nothing costs a dollar any more you just have to pull out a bunch of bills, and five dollar bills are even more worthless, it’s just a bill that gets you somewhere short of ten and therefore requires some ones.

That may sound like gibberish, but here’s the bottom line: pulling out and combining a bunch of bills is a lot harder than pulling out and combining a bunch of coins, trust me it just is. Bills are great if you only need to use one, or several of the same denomination. Having more than 2 common bill denominations is a pain, and I’m realizing that only after having given that up for this system.

Coins are much easier to handle. I know they’re heavier and all that nonsense, but it really doesn’t matter because you move your change rapidly. My first week I was just pulling out tens and accumulating change; I thought it’d take a month to get rid of it so I only took a few chunks of it here and there, often ending up not having the change I needed on me. Even so, I used up every dime in a few days. It’s just so easy to use change when there’s 1’s and 5’s in there because that’s all you need to access, you never have to combine change and bills. So, you really don’t accumulate much change. In fact, you accumulate far less than when all the change you have is a matter of cents that aren’t really worth pulling out, like we have in the states.

Anyway, this seems like a small and crazy point I’m sure, but when you get used to the convenience of this system, it sticks out.  I warn that the experience might be different for womenfolk, with the purses and wallets and all that. The whole change experience is predicated on being able to quickly and easily pull out change and bills from separate pockets.

It’s a similar system in Europe, but it’s not nearly as convenient because of all the damn bills, the 5 euro and 10 euro and 20 euro bills and all that. Lacking a 20USD equivalent and having the 5USD equivalent in coin form means that the purchases you use bills for and the purchases you use coins for are nicely separated, and you don’t need to worry about anything more than one and occasionally two denominations of bills. Japan’s is by far the best exchange system I’ve ever encountered. Except for drachmas, what a hilarious currency. ” That’ll be 10 drachmas please.” Hilarious, I don’t know how they do business with a straight face. “sales this year broke one million drachma’s“

If you’re reading this then you’ve successfully migrated along with me from my wordpress-hosted site to this self-hosted site. I plan on keep this domain name, StreetCursive.com, for a very long time so as long as you are coming here, tied to this rss feed or whathaveyou, you shouldn’t have to worry about anything related to your interaction with this site again.

If you can’t tell, things are still in a bit of a transitory phase, so please pardon our appearance while I get all the kinks worked out and morph this guy into his final conformation.

If you have any complaints or suggestions about the site as it evolves, please feel free to post that here in the comments for this post (not more recent but unrelated ones) or shoot me an email, any input is appreciated.

Also you’ll notice I added a twitter stream for the site. Do not be fooled, it is not a real twitter stream, it is an rss feed masquerading as one. Basically whenever I post something it’ll throw a notice up on twitter, it’s just for those of you that do use twitter to get your updates but don’t use rss readers. Personally, I don’t like twitter; I hate stopping what I’m doing just to take photographs let alone stopping to holler at the world. I see the point and I see it’s appeal, it’s just not my thing right now.

Anyway, here’s to new hosting, a new domain, and my continued travelling. Thanks for reading so far.

So two weeks into Japan and I hadn’t really gone anywhere, and I was in a bit of a panic when I realized that, after the coming 5-day weekend, I had only 2 more left in Osaka, after which Kansai would be expensively out of reach from Tokyo. So I was resolved to go somewhere (although I realized a couple days later that I was in error, and I had an extra weekend in there heh). Unfortunately, I was not the only one with this plan; there are normally only 2 weeks of holiday a year for the Japanese businessman, once in June and once after the first of the year, so this anomoly where three national holidays fall on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the same week generates serious domestic tourism. I wanted to visit the seaside town of Kanazawa, but found that there wasn’t a manger to sleep in; I called 24 hotels, and every single one was booked full. It was a similar story at Koya-san, a mountain retreat where over 50 Shingo Buddhist temples host travelers overnight including breakfast, dinner, and prayer (for a hefty fee), and Takayama, a mountain town that supposedly has a wealth of sights and peaceful locales to see and enjoy. I was able to book a place in Shirahama though, a beach and onsen resort town in Wakayama. I thought to go there for a bit of a change; nice beaches and onsen, a relaxing place. Ultimately though, I decided I’d rather do day trips in the Kansai area, of which there are many, than go hang out at the beach alone. The guy operating the ryokan even told me on the phone they were full until he found out I was going along, they had plenty of singles left.

The first of these trips was to Nara. My coworkers, in an effort to be almost unbearably gracious, constantly offer to take me places. I appreciate it deeply, but it’s a bit much, and I still haven’t gotten the hang of how to turn people down for stuff. I can’t just say no I’d rather travel alone, I gotta make up excuses and such; the problem is I don’t have excuses prepared beforehand, and the way the conversation works, or least how it works when talking to a foreigner with broken Japanese, is that if my immediate response is not some reason I can’t do it, then I indeed plan on doing it. So far things have worked out ish with me managing to turn down many very kind and considerate offers for entertainment without, hopefully, hurting too many feelings. Nevertheless I looked forward to making a little trip to Nara with coworkers, feel the place out a little and get a sense for it before I return after my duties at DA are done.

So on another hot Kansai morning I took the subway down to Nanba station where the Nara line reaches Osaka and met up with three of my coworkers, including my buddy T***-san and his child, Yuuki. The day that followed I’d describe as pretty *blank*. It was pretty fun, pretty hot, and overall pretty mild in terms of event, excitement, or adventure.

The express train to Nara’s only a few bucks and takes about half an hour from Nanba Osaka. You arrive in the midst of Naramachi (Nara being Nara and machi meaning town), which is essentially just the shopping focal point of the city, beefed up beyond the usual for a town that size by the tremendous influx of visitors. Indeed there was no shortage of tourists, especially Japanese, likely given the fame of the location, proximity to Osaka, Kyoto, and Nagoya, and the long weekend. Nara koen (park), where the hundreds of temples are located, is quite vaste though and there are ample tea houses and restaurants skirting it so despite the crush of visitors that you pass by, it doesn’t really effect the experience of visiting the big, popular temples like Todai-ji or getting a bit to eat. Getting out from the station we walked up uphill along the park, past the various Nara museums, I imagine containing mostly artifacts drawn from the temples and exhibits explaining the history of Japan’s (first?) capitol. We picked up some Bento boxes for lunch on the way that one of my companions had called ahead and had prepared. The day was hot, something you think I’d get used to or least pay attention enough to that I would, two weeks later, have gotten every inch of exposed skin burned to high heaven. I joke that I”m a New England lobster. But in either case it was hot, and of course the Japanese don’t wear (and therefore don’t frequently sell) sunglasses, so my retina’s remain thoroughly bleached. So we worked our way up in the shade by the park, walking past the other visitors (which were numerous, but as I mentioned nicely dispersed) and the Shika, or deer in Japanese, or Shkashkashkashka as Yuuki-chan loves repeating ad nauseum in his excitement after, full of trepidation, “sneaking” up to the lazy, braindead beasts and poking them in the butt to make them jump up and whirl about. There were tons of deer, all over the place. They’re not quite the deer I’ve seen in various parts of the states, quite different actually, but they’re no less stupid and do little more than walk around chasing tourists that hold out food for them (which is quite fun actually) and then processing said food all day. If you can’t tell I don’t have much love for deer, they just eat constantly and proliferate, it’s like the lowest common denominator of the mammal kingdom.

T***-san coming back with some drinks from across the way

Yuuki playing with Shika

Anyway, we worked our way up by the park towards Todai-ji, our primary site for the day, and probably the most famous of Nara’s landmarks. It contains a famed massive Buddha with two Bodhisattva’s flanking it. Before then we stopped in the park to eat lunch, which was made more exciting by a couple deer making their way over and accosting us. I found the best trick is to just back into the deer to push them away, allowing you to easily protect whatever you’re eating in your hands, and to continue the process. It was quite pleasant though, despite all the people. Again the place is massive. Himeji (a post to come), with but one real attraction is quite a different experience on touristy days.

A note on Yuuki-chan, the kid is very bold and excited, and fairly clever. I’ve interacted with him a couple times since, and he’s really endeared himself to me. He’s five, and in meeting people is generally quite shy at first, but opens up fully very quickly. He also cries about random things, which his father makes fun of him for endlessly. Still, he’s a pretty fun kid, with a tremendous amount of energy.

A gate to Todai-ji

So we completed our walk over to Todai-ji and took in the main site for the day, Daibutsu-den. It is a massive, gorgeous, entirely wooden structure (the largest wooden structure in the world actually). I don’t really have much to say about it other than what you’d read in a travel guide. It’s impressive in its scale (which is apparently only 2/3 of the original, rebuilt after, surprise, burning down in the 1700s, although I believe the buddha is original from the 8th century), but as a major attraction doesn’t really inspire anything than some awe on the concept of this massive structure and grounds set against the beautiful mountain backdrop (and in Japan, there is always a mountain backdrop, I can’t get away from it). To make the visit appropriately complete I had to of course indulge in some good old Japanese superstition. There’s a hole in the base of one of the pilons that is supposedly the same size as the Daibutsu’s nostril, so everyone tries to climb through the thing for good luck. It’s a fun little trick, and when adults do it, with great difficult, it solicits clapping and cheers (although short, T***-san is pretty buff and therefore wide, an unusual thing in Japan, so a real round of applause followed his unbelievable journey through the nostril).

Just like lighting candles in churches

Well, buddha

The hole

A final note on Daibutsu-den, the Japanese government has done an extremely simple and clever thing I’d love to see reproduced in the states and other countries. At major attractions around the country, including Daibutsu-den, they have big metal stamps with a well-designed mold that depicts some representative image of the site. This is coupled with an ad campaign to get kids around the country to put these site stamps (not like postal stamps, the kind you pound into ink and then mark paper with) in books and collect them. The effort, I imagine, is to get kids to take an interest in exploring the nation and its cultural heritage. They spin it in the advertisements like a mystery adventure to discover the sites and collect the stamps, quite clever as I remember how big sticker collecting was as a kid, despite how stupid that is. Kids like to collect things, especially things that fall neatly into a given medium, like stickers, and they can feel are personal treasures. The stamps colorfully and dramatically reflect being to these sites, which are famous, ancient, and awe-inspiring, so I think it does a good job of getting kids excited about trips to see things. Even if the kids don’t learn much traditional history at the sites, I think experiencing the holdovers from historical times at a young age will give children a sense of the past, of previous existences, and hopefully an interest in what the past has produced.

After that visit, we worked our way back to naramachi to promenade a little through both the quiet and busy streets, taking in the little niceties the city of nara has constructed and the bustling retail industry before heading home. It was a fine day, and taught me something important about Nara: it’s massive. Seeing a significant chunk of Nara’s sites is nothing to scoff at, and one should go there with the right mentality and reasonable expectation in order to best enjoy their experience.

Naramachi

In the following days I took a couple more day trips, first to Kyoto and then Himeji. Associated posts will follow.

To anyone considering visiting Japan, the inevitable first step is picking a travel guide. I know that’s a daunting task, given how many are out there, and how difficult it is to choose without knowing anything of the places you’re visiting. So, having gone through that process and lived through the consequences, I’d like to provide the best advice I can, which I think you’ll find is fairly simple and definitive.

As a rule of thumb, I always suggest purchasing two travel guides to get two perspectives, it’s not as hard as you might think to cross-reference them. Basically you pick one for whatever purpose (that’ll make sense shortly) and then double check with the other one in tough decision making circumstances.

First of all, it depends on who you are and why you’re going when determining what travel guide to purchase. If you are looking to travel in luxury and comfort, with the associated price tag, I suggest you purchase one of the travel guides I won’t discuss here, such as Fodor’s or Frommer’s, that is well established in evaluating luxurious accommodations with fairly little thought given to price. I would also purchase Lonely Planet to get a more accurate opinion of sites and locations than Fodor’s or Frommer’s is likely to give you.

For everyone else, Fodor’s and Frommer’s and, frankly, every other guide that I’ve seen out there except for Let’s Go, Lonely Planet, and Time Out, are worthlessly biased, poorly researched, and largely irrelevant to an enjoyable experience.

If you are traveling with a family of four for a couple weeks, get Lonely Planet, that’s all you need. Lonely planet by the way is not the best guide out there, personally I think Let’s Go and the Time Out City guides by far eclipse it, but if you are traveling with a family you are probably mostly interested in hitting the major sites and getting the most out of them, I think Lonely Planet is good for that, and will give you the most solid and affordable experience.

If you are traveling for most other reasons, whether it is alone for short or extended times, with friends, or any other reason I can think of (even business), get Let’s Go (LG) Japan and Lonely Planet Japan (LP). here is what you do with them:

Let’s go is by far superior for all practicalities: accommodations, transportation, shopping, entertainment, dining, long-term accommodations, jobs, and all other practical information. It’s opinions are honest and realistic, largely unidealized (you’ll find that misrepresentation can be a slight problem with Lonely Planet). Furthermore, it is excellent for an actual budget-conscious traveler, focusing on actually cheap locations and good deals at higher price ranges. All that said, its descriptions of sites can be randomly lacking, especially in major tourist cities like Tokyo and Kyoto, so it should be accompanied by another book. Furthermore, if budget is not an issue at all, LP provides more useful accommodation and nourishment information for those wishing for some style or expense, it’s a better middle ground.

Lonely Planet, as I mentioned, offsets LG nicely in that it provides much better maps and site descriptions, along with better orienting information in the maps (as useless as that is, see earlier post), although LG often provides crucial written landmarks that prove exceedingly useful (such as the KFC that led me like a savior to Kimi Ryokan upon my arrival).

LG and LP provide a great combination, and both will see fair use.

If you have any more questions about the guides or disagreements (or agreements) with what I’ve said, hit me up in the comments and I’ll try to respond.