Virtual Postcards Kyoto

I don’t visit Kyoto as a tourist; I visit this highly livable city as a kind of Sliding Doors movie/alternate reality of where and how I would always live if only it just was a few time zones closer.

Cherry Blossom Season Before I ever saw it, I always wondered: Why do people plan their entire visits around cherry blossom season? It seemed so precarious an idea and almost corny. But then... my beloved and I happened to be...

Everyone has their favorite place. But again and again, we return to Hotel Mitsui in the Kakagyo ward. From the lobby that opens onto its vast water garden, to the way they bring you your laundry folded like origami or...

Know that the Japanese excel at appropriation: when they take a foreign food, they don’t just copy it, they refine it. So a cappuccino or pizza here rivals one in Rome, and pastries smell like walking into the best of...

A global brand gone deeply local: housed in a beautifully restored 145‑year‑old machiya near the Kamo River, the staff here create your custom-blended scent on the spot and personalize the bottle with your name, now available in Japanese characters.

Giou-jui Temple Moss Garden A lesser known, moss garden where my beloved surprised me with our wedding proposal! Hushed, verdant and otherworldly, when we entered it, amazingly no one else was also visiting so we had the magical place all...