Where to Go in Kyoto

One of the problems with Kyoto as a travel destination is that there's too much. Too many temples, too many shrines, too many famous (or non-so-famous) sites. It is possible, of course, to hit the most famous—the Golden Pavilion, the Ryoanji rock-and-raked-sand garden, Nijo Castle, and Kiyomizu Temple—in a weekend, but then you've missed the Silver Pavilion, the Daitokuji Monastary's rock-and-raked-sand garden, the Imperial Palace, and Tokufukji.

For my tourists in the novel, I wanted to introduce them to some of the less crowded spots, and one of the places that has blown away everyone I've brought them to is the bamboo forest between Tokufuji, the giant Zen temple, and Okochisanso, the villa of a silent-film star Okochi Danjiro. It is totally foreign, absolutely lovely...and free.

Nara Celebrates Its 1300th Anniversary

Until around 600 CE, Japan did not have a set capital. We don't know for sure because the Japanese had no written language until they were exposed to Chinese by Buddhist monks who had come across the Sea of Japan from southern Korea. Among the monks' ideas was that of a capital city and Nara was one of the first.

This year, Nara is celebrating its 1,300th anniversary. It has reconstructed the eighth-century palace that was leveled when, upon the death of the emperor, the capital was moved to Kyoto in 784 CE. The government has also built a life-size replica of a ship that carried Japanese envoys to and from Tang China.

So this is a good year to visit Nara. You can check out the New York Times story. This is, after all, the city with the largest wooden building in the world that houses a bronze buddha that is larger than the one in Kamakura, the Daibutsu in the Todaiji.

Introduction to the book and the author

Getting Oriented is a novel set in Japan. The action follows a group of ten American tourists as they visit Kyoto, Nara, Hakone, Nikko, and Tokyo. Their guide is Philip Fletcher, recently down-sized and whose wife had been killed in an accident a year and a half before the novel opens. Phil speaks Japanese and is offered the tour-guide job by an old college buddy.

I wrote the novel because I am fascinated by Japan, Japanese culture, American responses to the culture, and because I was interested in the way a group of strangers react to each other and to a foreign culture. I plan to use this blog to talk about Japan, Japanese, and writing.