Japan and South Korea
Gardens first, then two capitals.
The old imperial city first, before the capitals; then Tokyo; and Seoul last, where the Joseon palaces stand a short walk from the modern city. Three cities that are better for being taken slowly, and in this order.
WhenBest in April, for the blossom, or from October to November, for the maples: all three cities are at their finest in both.
01 — Japan
Temples, gardens and wooden lanes in the old imperial capital.
Kyoto was Japan’s capital for more than a thousand years, and it keeps the temples, shrines, gardens and geisha districts that the modern capital does not. It lies in a bowl of wooded hills, with the eastern Higashiyama slopes, the bamboo of Arashiyama to the west and the torii gates of Fushimi Inari to the south. Osaka’s airports serve it.
02 — Japan
A city of villages around its stations, orderly and inexhaustible.
Tokyo is a metropolis made of villages, each around its railway station: Shibuya’s crossing and Shinjuku’s towers on the west side, Asakusa’s temple and the old downtown to the east, Ginza’s department stores and the imperial palace’s moats in the middle. It is orderly, endlessly deep, and Mount Fuji shows on clear winter mornings.
03 — South Korea
Palaces and hanok lanes north of the river, the new city south of it.
Seoul fills a basin of granite hills on the Han river, with the Joseon palaces and the old hanok quarters north of the water and the towers of Gangnam to the south. There are mountains inside its limits, and markets that keep late hours.
Somewhere else entirely? The concierge starts from a blank page.