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Comment by johngossman | Hacker News Reader

The author interviews both Pico Iyer and Alex Kerr. I can't recommend these two authors highly enough. Iyer's "The Lady and the Monk" and Kerr's "Another Kyoto" are worth reading even if you don't travel to Japan.

I was in Kyoto last year for two weeks. There are still lots of places where you can be completely alone in nature or a garden or a lovely street. But "the Big Five" are off limits unless you love human traffic jams.

That said, Gion before 10am is practically empty. You can wander around and look at the architecture. And I know quiet places within five blocks of central Gion.

I have mixed feelings about even saying this. Please, don't go . But if you are a respectful, slow traveler, Kyoto is still doable.

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Not only do you need to walk a mere block or two from the tourist line to find charming quiet spots, but there are tons of people that walk directly past beautiful and interesting places to get _to_ the jam-packed spots.

Small private gardens with interesting history and splendid views sitting nearly empty while a train of tens->hundreds of tourists walk directly past it per minute. Or small hiking trails within a stones throw of a packed entrance with a tiny fraction of the foot-traffic. They aren’t obscured either, just not the “main attraction”.

I was genuinely baffled.

That's what you get when people travel to that one point they saw on Instagram. People crossing the world to take that exact photo a million people before them took.

99% of tourists are like that.

No real confidence so they don't wander around and use their own brains. They just go to the top 10 spots chatGPT, tiktok, or some other list dictates.

It's like how people go to the Louvre and stand in line for 3 hours to look at one famous painting that they probably don't even really like all that much, and not see anything else in arguably the world's best gallery.

This is doubly true for a hot spot like Japan, because it's the current number one on the dumb lists.

one tiny famous painting from a cop-enforced distance of god knows how much while an enormous painting full of stuff stands right opposite it

I imagine the curators did this to entertain themselves. I thought it was a great juxtaposition when I visited.

oh, totally

what i intended to point out was that regrettably few people actually pay any attention to the nozze di cana despite it being both more accessible physically and worthy of interest

I was in Japan during covid, Kyoto was absolutely incredible…we sat in zen gardens for an hour and saw 5–10 other people. Mostly extremely quiet, beautifuly dressed Japanese women enjoying the scene together.

I setup my camera and toook photos at Kinkakuji for hours in different lighting situations while having nice conversations with various Japanese tourists. It was, unimaginable. I still enjoy Kyoto though. It is what it is.

I was also in Kyoto right before the lockdowns for the first time in a decade and it was magical and like it was in my childhood. When I went back a few years ago, I nearly cried; the lovely quiet city of books was so noisy and everyone was so angry. I don’t really have a point I don’t think you should stop people from travelling but still it make’s me sad.

What I'm a bit confused about is why Japan doesn't just make more wonderful things , so there is just more to go around? Like what happened to building amazing temples, and gardens? Where did that spirit go. I find it quite sad and strange that the temples are kind of ghost towns without any practicing monks (for example).

I guess that time is over, and that's sad, I just don't feel like it has to be.

Maybe the declining population is just part of it all, there is just less incentive to go bigger, on the other hand, even 100,000 million people on an island the size of Japan is a lot so I'm not sure that's it either.

I think that's the case in many places, isn't it? Like people go to towns in Europe to look at a cathedral that's hundreds of years old.

There are actually a lot of other amazing temples, gardens, and shrines, they're just not as well known. And there's a healthy industry of traditional craftsmen who still build and maintain shrines, temples, and other buildings the traditional way. Kyoto will continue gobbling up the crowds no matter how many other alternatives there are because that's the nature of tourism, but it's not for a shortage of other beautiful places.

It is sad for the people of Kyoto though, because over tourism can really rip the heart out of a city for the locals.

There is more to go around, but there is a practical limit to how much you can see as a tourist in a limited window with good public transport access etc.

There's already plenty to go around. It's like paintings in the Louvre, the Mona Lisa is overrun because there's a kind of mythology about it, not because nobody paints anymore.

As another poster commented, there are people who still build with traditional materials and methods. The temples are made of wood and have to be renovated. Some are completely rebuilt, symbolic of the transitory nature of the material world. Enryakuji is undergoing renovations and they had to completely cover it with a metal shed while they work on the roof. But it's still open and you can still visit either as a sacred site or to learn about the traditional methods. It is supposed to finished in 2026.

As far as building new temples. Those monasteries had thousands of resident monks. They were significant military powers they were so populated. Even though the overall population of Japan has grown, far fewer people want to live that life. But again, there's no shortage of temples.

My trick in Kyoto, is to go up. Tourists typically aren't willing to climb a steep staircase to get to nice hiking paths.

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