Kyoto Customized Private Tour in 1 Day — Guide Kazu

Title: What's a Private One-Day Kyoto Tour Like? A Licensed Guide's Report on Arashiyama and Kinkaku-ji

The guests were a group from North America, who had immigrated from Europe about 40 years ago. This was their first trip to Japan. They came to Kyoto from Asia, and planned to continue on to Hida-Takayama, Kanazawa, and Tokyo. They had apparently tried to go to Nara the day before, but took a wrong turn and ended up somewhere completely different, wasting the whole day. Even when I asked the name of the place they had gone, it was not entirely clear. So from the very start of the morning, they put pressure on me, saying they were really counting on today's Kyoto tour. One of the guests had a friend who had visited Kyoto the previous year and enjoyed it very much, and their itinerary this time was exactly the same as that friend's route. Given that, I added Tenryu-ji temple to the plan. I'm sure they will boast about it. They were such a delightful group. It had been a while since I guided anyone on the Sagano Romantic Train. Unfortunately, the cherry blossoms were still only about 30% in bloom. Their questions were interesting. They were very interested in Onmyodo (the way of yin and yang), and I answered as they asked. When I explained the connection between the title "Shogun" and Onmyodo, they were delighted. While I was explaining the cherry blossoms, they suddenly asked me what I honestly thought of President Trump, which put me at a loss for an answer, but I answered honestly. At Kinkaku-ji, as I was telling the story of how it had burned down completely 70 years ago and was rebuilt, one of the guests said, "Kaz, I have a question — gold doesn't burn. When it burned down 70 years ago, where did the gold go?" I couldn't answer well at the time, and the tour ended without a clear answer, so afterward I kept wondering about it, and later looked it up at home and replied by email with the details. In short, over the roughly 600 years that had passed, the outer surface of the building — whether gold leaf or lacquer — had weathered away in the wind and rain, so that by the time of the fire 70 years ago almost no gold leaf remained and the bare wood was exposed, with only a little gold leaf remaining on the phoenix atop the roof. But the phoenix had happened to be removed for maintenance a few days before the fire and thus escaped harm. Gold begins to melt at 1,064 degrees Celsius. Intense flames such as those in a fire can reach over 1,000 degrees, and indeed gold does not melt, but since gold leaf is extremely thin — only about 0.1 to 0.2 microns — it is thought to have scattered along with the wood in the force of the flames during the fire. In my own view, it may have sunk into the pond along with the rubble. The tour ended and we parted at Kinkaku-ji, but since they said they wanted to buy a Japanese knife, and since they had been moving around all day without lunch, I went back with them to Sanjo, introduced them to a traditional knife shop and a restaurant, and said goodbye.

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Tour Report by Kazu

Hello, this is Kazu Akiyama, your tour guide. Nice to meet you and welcome to Japan. Thank you for joining me on the tour. Now I am a retired salaried worker, living in Osaka. I have been very much interested in not only learning Japanese history, culture, religion myself, but also talking about them (sometimes going off topics) in English with tourists from all over the world as well. I am so excited being with you as your guide on coming day! I am very much looking forward to you enjoying with me visiting the must-see places and some of the hidden gems. See you soon. Thank you – Kazu Akiyama