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KJ
BLOGOLOGY
Article
Title
Kyoto Access Online
From KJ #70
When
I arrived in Kyoto in the early ‘80s, a friend who had preceded
me by a few years (winding up at the “No Way Home” guesthouse)
gave me a worn-out photocopy — of an already dog-eared photocopy
— of a prized and quirkily-detailed anonymous locally-hand-made
multi-page “Underground Map” of Kyoto, introducing many of
the city’s non-famous attractions. I learned about its back-street
galleries, best rock or jazz kissaten, essential imported foods stores,
and memorably offbeat public bath-houses: Kyoto as a liveable locale,
a different perspective from any tourist-oriented guidebook. (That map,
I found out later, was originally produced as a limited edition by John
Einarsen, who went on to edit Kyoto Kaleidoscope magazine, and later to
found KJ).
Times have changed. New arrivals in Kyoto nowadays can access a host of
useful resources online. First, among the “official” sites
some do now actually live up to their potential:
Kyoto Tourism Council: (www.kyoto.travel/)
“a private organization formed by tourism-related groups and industries
in co-operation with Kyoto City with the aim of encouraging foreign tourists
to visit Kyoto.” Has nifty PDF downloads of Kyoto map and guidebook
(no need to print, just keep it for reference on your virtual desktop),
plus a Kyoto weather widget that gives a detailed 15 day forecast. In
English. (As a bonus, this site features “embedded blogs”
by three local foreign residents, including a Canadian tea-master and
a young Czech kyogen actor).
Kyoto Prefecture's Welcome
to Kyoto (www.pref.kyoto.jp/visitkyoto/en/) extends beyond
Kyoto City, includes good coverage of Kyoto’s 17 World Heritage
sites.
On the entrepreneurial side: Kyoto
Visitors Guide (www.kyotoguide.com) has monthly highlights
and database; useful for residents too. Kansai
Art Beat (www.kansaiartbeat.com/), a bilingual art &
design events calendar, lists 300 venues along with up-to-date information
on their current and future shows. (Select your favorite local galleries,
have their upcoming event notifications automatically emailed to you,
free).
Looking for a place to live, a job, wheels, sayonara-sale goodies? No
need to check rag-tag café notice-boards these days. Kansai Fleamarket’s
weekly publication is available online at www.kfm.to
– or go to gaijinstuff.com.
But in terms of really getting into Kyoto, you still can’t beat
material that’s lovingly hand-crafted at the personal level. One
of the most helpful Kyoto resources for residents and visitors is Michael
Lambe’s wonderfully informative blog, aptly named Deep
Kyoto (www.deepkyoto.com) “...introducing those good
places and people that make up the modern city. The primary focus of the
blog is on cafes, bars and restaurants of character. ... All reviews are
of places I personally have visited and taken a shine to, and include
opening hours, plenty of photographs, and super clear directions.”
(Particularly useful for anyone looking for vegetarian specialities, and
really relaxed places to hang out...).
Another fine inside view of what it can be like to live in present-day
Kyoto is found in Ted Taylor‘s blog, Notes from the ‘Nog (“now
with more Kyoto” at notesfromthenog.blogspot.com).
Music, events, places, covered from an engaged and thoughtful point of
view.
For more aspects of life in Kyoto, Nils Ferry‘s well-illustrated
Alive in Kyoto (www.planetkyoto.com/blog)
is also worth visiting. And in French — or just for
the excellent photos — check out La
Riviere Au Canards (lariviereauxcanards.typepad.com).
So maybe you’d like to settle in, and write some haiku? Meet the
local Hailstone Haiku Circle via their new blog, the
Icebox (hailhaiku.wordpress.com). (And if you’re stuck
for a seasonal reference, there’s even a link there to the “World
Kigo Database”).
What with those ubiquitous newfangled romaji street signs, English announcements
in public transport (hey, I recognize those voices — hi Kathy, hi
Maggie!), and up-to-date Internet resources, Kyoto is way more accessible
these days. Google Earth’s satellite overview of this constantly-evolving
city, however, dates back, unchanged, to 2004*.
*
....Finally updated within three weeks of release of #70 (showing satellite
views from around February 2008)....
Also, Google
Maps now has Street View for much of Kyoto (and other Japanese
cities). But not everyone is happy about this new service: (..."The
residential roads of Japan's urban areas are a part of people's living
space, and it is impolite to photograph other people's living spaces.")
See here,
and here
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