Japan Land of Beauty & Tradition

Book excerpt: This Japan travel guide features dozens of beautiful photographs and insightful commentary. Japan: Land of Beauty and Tradition takes the reader on a sweeping tour of this always enticing and often surprising country. From the gaudy exuberance of the Sensoji temple to the tranquility of Ryoanji's stone garden, from Kyushu's tropical shores to Hokkaido's arctic slopes, from rice fields and iris gardens to castles and monasteries, this book presents page after page of graphic testimony that Japan continues to be a land of exquisite beauty and rich tradition. Dozens of stunning, full-color photographs by one of Japan's leading landscape photographers are accompanied by a text that provides concise historical and cultural descriptions of the delightfully varied islands that make up Japan.