"Kyoto - home of traditional Japanese... " a Kyoto Travel Page by konniemario

Kyoto is located in the Kansai region, the unmissable destination in Japan. It was the imperial capital between 794 and 1868 and is still considered by most Japanese to be the cultural heart of Japan. It is known for its raked pebble gardens, the sensous contours of a temple roof, the tripping step of a latter-day geisha in pursuit of a taxi. Dotted by many temples and shrines, most of which are UNESCO World Heritage sites, visiting those sites gives you the impression that you're just like walking back in time. Walking along the narrow streets of Gion, you can almost imagine how some of the scenes of "Memoirs of a Geisha" took place! It's just impressive how were they able to preserve the traditional Japanese culture in this city.

We picked Kyoto as our first glimpse of Japan because of the obvious reasons and we were not disappointed. Aside from having the chance to see some of the most famous temples and shrines, it gave us the first hand experience of the Japanese culture of politeness, discipline and order. Imagine, they wouldn't even cross an alley if the light is red...even if there are no cars! That would make lots of local Chinese scratch their heads to death...;-)

Oh and of course, we're very impressed at how well organized their tourism industry is -- for local residents and overseas visitors like us. Although we don't speak any Japanese aside from the Ohiogozaimaz or Arigato, we didn't really have much problem in finding any of the sites, because of the well panned out maps and clear signages. We even ventured outside Kyoto and went city-hopping to Nara, Osaka and Kobe, all in one day.