"Kyoto is a tourist's paradise---or nightmare. No matter how long your visit you'll never exhaust the possibilities of sightseeing. And you'll be sure to miss something you'll later wish you hadn't. Kyoto has over 1,500 temples and shrines, among which are the largest concentration of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Furthermore, the proximity of Uji City and Shiga Prefecture, not to mention Nara and Osaka, make difficult choices about how to ration your limited sightseeing time even more difficult.

     This book propounds the belief that not only should a tourist experience the sights of the Old Capital,1 but the tastes as well. It seems a great pity that someone would come from halfway around the world and not sample the traditional cuisine since Japanese cuisine in general and Kyoto cuisine in particular tastes so much better in Japan.

     There are a lot of restaurants in Kyoto, but not all of them are good. In fact, your chances of walking into a good restaurant by accident are slim. But what can a tourist on a tight schedule do?

     Also, there's the matter of cost. Good, traditional Japanese food tends to be more expensive than the other options.

     Taking into account the above considerations, this combination sightseeing and restaurant guide has been created with the intention of helping you to maximize your time in Kyoto without sacrificing one of the finer things in life: good food at a reasonable price.

     Sightseeing attractions and restaurants are grouped together geographically and their positions in relation to each other are shown in detail on maps. Photos of the street entrances  to restaurants listed are meant to aid in identification since traditional Japanese restaurants will seldom display signs in the Roman alphabet.

     Although the book is aimed at readers of the English language with no prior knowledge of Japanese, it has been necessary to use a lot of Japanese vocabulary. To help mitigate the deluge of unfamiliar terms, two tools are included: an appended Washoku glossary and an expanded index whose bolded page numbers indicate the page where the best explanation of a topic is to be found in the text.

     The area covered by this book is Kyoto, but in the geographical sense of Kyoto defined as the Yamashiro Basin, bounded by the mountains of the Nishi-, Kita-, and Higashiyama ranges on the west, north, and east respectively, and not going any further south than the Uji River.

     I sincerely hope that it will aid you in experiencing the traditional sights and tastes of the Old Capital."

1 Kyoto was the capital of Japan from 794 to 1869.

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