♪ ♪ (Rudy Maxa) I'm streaming along in a bullet train to an ultramodern train station in the most traditional, ancient, and revered city in Japan...Kyoto!

(woman) "Rudy Maxa's World," proudly sponsored by The Leading Hotels of the World.

Quests for travel begin at LHW.com, where you'll discover a collection of nearly 450 unique hotels worldwide... including the distinctive family of Taj hotels, resorts, and palaces.

♪ ♪ Every quest has a beginning-- online at LHW.com.

Additional funding for "Rudy Maxa's World" provided by: Medjet.com, medical evacuation membership protection for travelers.

Take trips, not chances.

And by... Yokoso!

Or "Welcome to Japan."

And by Delta--serving hundreds of destinations worldwide.

Information to plan your next trip available at delta.com.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [koto music plays] ♪ ♪ (Rudy) After a few days in Kyoto, nothing seems accidental-- a blossom on the pavement, the way a bough bends in the wind, a kimono clad figured disappearing in the old streets.

♪ ♪ Everything is art.

Kyoto inspires a new way of seeing, a poignant appreciation of beauty in everyday life.

From the simple, studied ritual of tea, to a stone in the tranquil garden, the smallest detail informs the whole and raises the experience to epiphany.

This simple deep beauty is at the core of the Japanese concept called wabi-sabi.

♪ ♪ [big band plays swing rock] ♪ ♪ Kyoto is a modern city of one-and-a-half-million people, yet it never forgets it was the old capital of Japan and the seat of power for centuries.

Modern Kyoto's sprawl conceals pockets of old Kyoto.

Just steps from a thronged avenue with department stores and flashy neon are quiet backstreets with little shrines and wooden houses.

Wabi-sabi is on display all over-- in the perfect fan, the arrangement of food, tea, sweets, and temple gardens.

Some 2 hours by train from Tokyo, Kyoto is a landlocked city encircled by mountains.

It's just past dawn at the 15th century Zen garden in the Ryoan-ji Temple.

I'm contemplating 15 rocks in raked gravel, and at first, they look like, well, like 15 rocks, but as the light changes suddenly and the birds sing, the rocks take on a new beauty.

Simplicity and harmony-- this is the essence of the concept of wabi-sabi.

At another Zen temple, Taizohin-ji, a young priest is preparing the garden for the day.

♪ ♪ Is how you rake the stones as important as the fact you are raking the stones?

It is a kind of training.

We have to concentrate on raking so it looks nice, and also it is a kind of meditation.

I rake the very simple garden.

Almost no flowers in the garden.

It is a very typical Zen garden.

I start the same place, and I will end from the same place.

Can you explain to me the concept of wabi-sabi?

Wabi-sabi.

[laughs] It's very difficult.

It's beyond description, but, for example, the flower arrangements.

So in Western countries, flower arrangements means many volumes and abundant, but in Japan it's very simple.

It's only one flower or 2 varieties of flowers, and it express more than they are.

(Rudy) Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines dominate Kyoto.

Buddhism, and later Zen Buddhism, arrived here from China and merged with the local religion, Shinto.

It was an easy marriage of nature worship with a contemplative exploration of the self.

From Zen gardens to the blazing glory of the kimono, Kyoto was for centuries the kimono capital of the world its long, narrow streets reverberating with the sound of hundreds of looms.

The art of weaving kimonos and their sashes, called obi, is dying as fewer people are wearing the traditional dress.

These complex looms can take weeks to set up for a particular design.

The kimono reflects the season, and in spring, bright colors and flowers light up this fashion show in the textile court.

These days kimonos are worn mainly for ceremonies and celebrations.

♪ ♪ Wabi-sabi literally came knocking at the door of kimono designer Ei Tamamura.

This playful master of color and design showed me his materials, dyes, and exquisite finished kimonos.

What is your philosophy about design and kimonos?

Philosophy?

Yes.

[speaking Japanese] (Rudy) Ah, what are your thoughts?

(Ei) For me the most important part-- color, not design-- color.

We make, between this color to this, about 100 color.

(Rudy) You can make 100 colors, shades, in-between that?

(Ei) Yes.

(Rudy) Wow!

(Ei) It is very expensive.

This fabric makes one kimono.

This long piece of fabric?

(Ei) Yes.

(Rudy) So from the idea to the completion, it's 3, 3 1/2 months.

So 3 million yen would be $30,000 for this.

(Ei) Yes.

What is the importance or the significance of the obi?

Backside is the most important part because front side has a face.

The backside has no face.

Right.

So you need-- so this is simply decorative.

Yes.

You're so quick!

Yeah, I'm really smart about kimonos.

[both laugh] ♪ ♪ Kimonos are still the traditional outfit of the geisha.

Toshifumi is a 17-year-old geisha in training called a maiko.

In the past, geisha were often girls from poor families sold into the profession.

Their dress and makeup involve a demanding ritual.

Their rigorous training in the arts made them merchants of a dream of beauty, poise, and sensibility.

[a koto plays; a woman sings in Japanese] (Rudy) Geisha are not courtesans.

They've always been performing artists trained thoroughly in the arts.

Gion is the district to spot geisha as they float silently into private gatherings at teahouses.

Not all women in white face and kimonos in Gion are maikos or geisha.

Several shops in town will make you geisha for a day.

Gion is the city's most picturesque neighborhood, a little slice of old Kyoto.

Kabu-kai Theater began on these streets, and geisha have entertained here since the 1500's.

Kyoto escaped bombing in World War II, so many old houses remain.

It's spring in Kyoto, and the cherry trees are in bloom.

The Japanese revere nature, and the seasons are celebrated.

Food, kimonos, parasols, candies-- all are tied to the time of the year.

♪ ♪ Internationally acclaimed Chef Kenichi Hashimoto and his wife invited me to their restaurant, Ryozanpaku, for a traditional kaiseki meal.

Kaiseki evolved as a light meal for monks and later became part of the tea ceremony.

Typically, the meal is a small parade of dishes, but today for me, Mr. Hashimoto is creating a one-dish masterpiece.

Kaiseki is like a musical an opera, same, and a movie.

With a beginning, a middle, an end, it tells a story?

Yes, story.

What is today's story?

Season is very important for his cooking so always, he go out and feels the atmosphere of that season and the day, and he thinks how to make it, uh-huh.

Spring has come, beautiful!

We are pleased!

(Rudy) So your kaiseki story to me today is about spring and the cherry blossoms in Kyoto?

Oh my goodness!

This is wonderful!

(Chef Hashimoto) Thank you.

(Rudy) These are the cherry blossoms?

And what is this?

(Chef Hashimoto) Carrot.

(Rudy) It's beautiful!

And these are stones?

(Chef Hashimoto) Yeah, stone.

(Rudy) Logs, wood.

(Chef Hashimoto) Yeah, yeah.

Now, will tomorrow's kaiseki be different?

Yeah, yeah every day!

Oh yes, I have map of cuisine.

Do you do that every day?

Yes, every day.

What is this?

Pumpkin.

Pumpkin, and...octopus.

This makes me very happy that it's spring.

Yes!

It's important!

Kyoto craftsman vied for the honor of serving the Imperial Court.

Everything from umbrellas to fans was taken to the height of perfection.

Today the KYO prefix on a product is still a mark of distinction.

Perfection shines through in Kyoto's meticulously crafted goods.

From a hand-polished comb to an exquisitely drawn fan, simple, quiet beauty infuses these works.

Kyoto is still the crafts capital of Japan.

All over town, craftspeople are painting, welding, gilding, assembling.

I thought I'd seen all the wabi-sabi in town, but then I came upon the Shoyoido Incense Shop.

How many fragrances here in the store, roughly, approximate?

We have possibly 300 or 400 of kinds.

(Rudy) Three or 400?

>> Yes.

Yes.

So how important is fragrance to the Japanese?

We have a beautiful 4 seasons, so according to the seasons, we enjoy the differences of the fragrance.

Really?

So it might be a heavier fragrance in the winter?

Yes, yes and cozy, warmer fragrance for the winter.

You told me on the first day of each month, in your office, you burn a special fragrance.

Um-hum.

Yes.

So, is it like wine, where you have different gradations of quality?

Yes, according to the ingredients.

Is this it?

Yes.

Purely natural, and we cannot produce the ingredients in this country at all, you see.

What are the ingredients for this?

These are the agarwood, fine agarwood.

From where?

From Vietnam or from Kampuchea, and from the natural forest.

So that would be more expensive than, say, these, the sticks?

That's right.

Once teak cost about $5.00.

This is a $5.00 stick?

We should put it out quickly!

But this is your special one the first of the month?

Um-hum.

Um-hum.

Thank you for sharing it with me.

>> Thank you.

Forget about raked gardens, the food at Nishiki Market is so artfully presented, I could contemplate it all day.

♪ Nishiki is one of Japan's best markets.

Everything has been cooked or cut for sampling from roasted tea, fresh fish to the egg roll served with sushi.

If it's edible in Japanese, you'll find it here.

Now this is black bean tea.

Arigato!

Thank you!

Early in the morning at Nishiki, soy milk is being boiled in vats.

Yuba is the skin that comes from boiled soy milk.

The first and most tasty layer of skin is reverently skimmed and scooped into baggies for the very best restaurants in town.

The next layers are carefully hung and dried and then cut.

The result is a delicately flavored, highly nutritious pastalike substance that can be rolled and stuffed, or dropped into a soup.

[a bamboo flute plays] ♪ ♪ Tea arrived in Japan from China in the 8th century, but the tea ceremony evolved in the 15th century.

That's when a Zen priest used tea to show how everyday acts could lead to enlightenment.

Samurai picked up the habit and drank tea to heighten their awareness before battle.

The ceremony is highly ritualized and includes the symbolic purification of the scoop and bowl, each motion designed to bring harmony, purity, and serenity.

The ceremony culminates in a whisked cup of powdered green tea.

♪ ♪ The Zen of tea stops the world and opens the mind.

♪ ♪ Wabi-sabi isn't limited to Zen gardens.

Kyoto's sweet shops capture the essence of spring with sweets shaped like a butterfly, a plum blossom, one that even reflects the colors of the season.

They're too gorgeous to eat-- well, almost.

The confections for spring are filled with a sweetened red paste made from azuki bean, common across East Asia.

[wind chimes chime brightly with a high-pitched ring] It's spring and Kyoto's blossoms are coming to life.

The first cherry blossoms are predicted and tracked on the news and everyone's out to greet them.

♪ ♪ The Philosopher's Walk, a 2-kilometer stroll under blazing cherry trees, is the most popular place to take in the flowers.

♪ ♪ For a different kind of spring beauty, the Arashiyama neighborhood has a bamboo forest that reaches high into the sky.

An endless number of items in Japan are made from bamboo including the shakuhachi flute.

[a flute and mandolin play] ♪ ♪ Zen monks use the shakuhachi for meditation.

An extremely simple instrument, it creates complex musical sounds.

East and West trade places in this musical combo.

Uwe Walter of German descent is a master of the shakuhachi while his partner Osamu Kise, plays a western mandolin type instrument.

♪ ♪ It's a piece of bamboo.

This is called shakuhachi because it's one shaku and 8 sun, one shaku and 8 sun, and I do them myself.

I make them myself here and has only 5 holes, and there's no mouthpiece, just a cut, and you build the mouthpiece yourself.

You need a lot of muscles.

You have to blow it directly from the guts, otherwise it sounds like a flute.

And there are different lengths.

When you want to make your own shakuhachi, you go to a grove, a mango grove, and just hit the bamboo, then you know that might be a good shakuhachi.

♪ ♪ (Rudy) Kiyomizu-dera Temple dates from the year 780, though it was rebuilt in the 17th century.

It's one of Kyoto's most revered temples, and its name means "pure water."

In 794, 15 years before Kyoto became the capital of Japan, a priest wandered into these woods in search of a spring and met a hermit who inspired him to build a temple.

In Kyoto, there's an expression, "leaping from Kiyomizu-dera," which means taking a big risk.

The Higashiyama district leading up to the temple is one of Kyoto's many pockets of old Japan.

The tea ceremony, Noh theater, and flower arranging all developed in this quarter of the old capital.

♪ ♪ Often the streets leading to a temple are jammed with food stalls and vendors.

♪ ♪ Everything from kimonos, chocolate bananas, and goldfish are on offer to those en route to the Kitano Shrine.

This Shinto shrine was built in the 900's in honor of a famous scholar who was exiled because of his politics.

To this day, students come here to pray for success in their exams.

♪ For the ultimate in the Japanese aesthetic, I'm checking into a ryokan, a traditional inn.

Konnichiwa!

[speaks Japanese] I'm Rudy Maxa.

Thank you very much for coming today.

Nice to be here.

Thank you.

It's beautiful!

Thank you very much.

Please come in.

Once again, less is more.

My room-- a family scroll, a screen, a lamp, and nothing much more than a simple mattress on the floor-- perfect, simple, beautiful.

A stay at a ryokan almost always includes a traditional meal.

It's beautiful, number one, but there's so much of it.

Oh, thank you very much.

Generally we serve one-by-one like little courses.

I see.

Yes.

It's still a lot, even one-by-one, and it's gorgeous.

I mean, the sashimi has little flower blossoms?

Yes.

The tofu I see is decorated with cherry blossoms about to burst out.

Right.

This should cover the basic food groups.

Yes.

Wow!

Well thank you very, very much.

Please enjoy.

I will.

I will.

My goodness!

♪ ♪ The Japanese aesthetic is certainly in play at the Hyatt Regency in Kyoto.

The Hyatt combines the elegance and simplicity of the ryokan with modern amenities.

These days many Japanese travelers prefer Western style hotels for the privacy and level of comfort.

There's fresh sushi, a garden to contemplate, and a spa to further erase the world's cares.

♪ ♪ Just north of Kyoto, the little community of Ohara is tucked away in the hills.

It's a touch of old Japan right at Kyoto's doorstep.

In autumn these hills blaze with color, and plantations around here grow vegetables for Kyoto.

Ohara is renowned for its pickles.

A traditional Japanese meal includes a side dish of pickled vegetables.

Pickling goes back centuries.

It was a way to preserve food using salt from the sea.

So, all this is pickles?

Hai!

Pickles and pickled products are very big in the Kyoto area.

This store alone has 30 to 40 varieties on sale.

Let's start with a couple here.

This is bok choy.

So it would pickled bok choy.

It's pickled all right.

This exotic looking hot pink thing is pickled radish.

Very crunchy, crunchy.

Hmm, almost horseradishy.

Then we have a deep purple eggplant that's been pickled.

Soft, rubbery, vinegar, salty.

Can't imagine developing 40 different flavors of pickled products, but here they are.

♪ Ohara's Sanzen-in Temple is set in lovely 17th-century gardens.

One mosque garden is aptly named "the garden that gathers green."

♪ ♪ Amida Buddhism, or Pure Land Buddhism, became popular in medieval Japan.

It offered enlightenment, not through the vigor of meditation, but through worship and faith.

Amida Buddhism opened the religion to the common people, including women.

In Japanese gardens, everything is arranged, composed, perfected.

The Japanese have discovered a new world, one that hangs poised between man and nature.

♪ ♪ 17-century poet Basho wrote "Even in Kyoto, I long for Kyoto".

If any place can inspire you to long for it while you're still standing in its streets, it's this city.

From its Zen gardens to artisan shops, from bamboo forests to the pale painted face of a geisha, Kyoto is perfection itself.

But it's the perfection of a spring morning-- fresh, sweet, and temporal.

Beauty is fleeting here in the old capital.

I've slowed down and found wabi-sabi and Zen mindfulness in Kyoto.

Reporting from the here and now, I'm Rudy Maxa.

Sayonara!

(woman) For information on the places featured in "Rudy Maxa's World," along with other savvy traveling tips, visit... To order DVDs of "Rudy Maxa's World" or the CD of world music from the series, call or visit... ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ CC--Armour Captioning & Twin Cities Public Television ♪ ♪ "Rudy Maxa's World," proudly sponsored by The Leading Hotels of the World.

Quests for travel begin at LHW.com, where you'll discover a collection of nearly 450 unique hotels worldwide, Including the distinctive family of Taj hotels, resorts, and palaces.

Every quest has a beginning, online at LHW.com.

Additional funding for Rudy Maxa's World provided by Medjet.com, medical evacuation membership protection for travelers.

Take trips, not chances.

And by... Yokoso!

or "Welcome to Japan."

And by Delta--serving hundreds of destinations worldwide.

Information to plan your next trip available at delta.com.

[orchestral fanfare] ♪ ♪