As almost any tour book will tell you, Kyoto represents Japan's cultural capital. Kyoto is both very new and very old. Kyoto's new train station, completed in 1997, dwarfs Kyoto Tower, a once visible landmark from the train, and the pagoda at the Shingon temple, Toji, which has been part of the Kyoto landscape since the early ninth century. From Kyoto station, people fan out now in all directions to return home. Two major subway lines crisscross the city extending the its boundaries from southern Tanabe, where Doshisha built its new undergraduate campus, to eastern Yamashina and Otsu along the shores of Lake Biwa.

The contrasts of the new and old, traditional and modern, are what strike most students who study at the AKP Center located on the Imadegawa Campus at Doshisha University. Situated in the heart of old Kyoto, the AKP Center finds itself surrounded by the Imperial Palace and the Zen temple Shokoku-ji. A fifteen minute bus ride east takes you to the gate of the fifteenth century Silver Pavilion (Ginkaku-ji) nestled in the Eastern Hills (Higashiyama) and a short ride to the northwest brings you to the precincts of the Gold Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji). Kyoto is a very manageable, a very intimate big city.

A ten minute subway ride from Kyoto station finds you on Doshisha's Imadegawa Campus. A five minute walk east from Doshisha will take you to the Kamo River that flows through the center of modern Kyoto crowded with department stores, movie theaters, boutiques, night clubs, bars, and restaurants as well as the Kabuki Theater and Geisha houses and bars in the Gion district. The center of Kyoto also has many of the city's older Western buildings that rose in Japan's Victorian period. But a short walk or bike ride in any direction soon finds you in hilly suburbs to the west, north, and east. Here, in hidden valleys and along the hillsides that ring the city, one finds ancient retreats and temples that escaped the wars which devastated the city's center throughout its history. Short excursions into the hills and to areas like Uji, Arashimaya, and Ohara will lead to interesting discoveries about Kyoto's past.

Welcome, then, to Kyoto. Like any ancient and modern city, Kyoto will reward those who patiently and diligently look, question, and delight in the myriad of scenes that this city offers throughout the seasons.