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Most Japanese foundational cultural traditions are emphatically non-utilitarian, sword making being the only exception. Hanami, ikebana, origami - all of them draw inspiration from Nature to create and/or celebrate Beauty.

The innate magic of fire - the most aggressive and immediate of the Five Elements - that alternately overwhelms and hypnotizes people is what must be responsible for Omizutori's never abating popularity spanning well over a millennium.

“Naramachi” literally translates as “Nara Town”, and it's a Japanese version of an Open-Air Museum, “Japanese” being equivalent to “original”.

It's that uncanny objectivity - in a situation that is screaming for anything but - that turns the Diary Exhibition into the most stunning and overwhelming experience of the whole Memorial Park.

Time, combined with modern technology, has ultimately put physical distance to shame and rendered it almost insignificant. Psychological distance between different peoples is gradually being subjected to the same fate

It's one thing to look at incomprehensible kanji and try to memorize their arbitrarily assigned sounds and meanings, it's quite another to be given a brush and an inkpot, and to be shown how to apply the brush to a piece of high-quality paper.

Half-a-soccer-pitch long (41 meters) and taller than many multistoried buildings (11 meters), the statue dominates the area, absolutely dwarfs everything and everybody in sight

To do it full justice, one has to be there because words don't even begin to describe the sensation. Pictures might try - and fail…

The story of the town can best be told as a love story featuring a young woman who stumbled upon an old student dormitory and loved it so much that she purchased it and moved in from a big city.