Tokyo Arts & Kyoto Crafts
In Tokyo, the art certainly isn't restricted to famous museums. Galleries are hidden on back alleys, unique art fills private residences in tucked-away suburbs, and contemporary design fills derelict warehouses. The challenge is finding it all, for even when you're on the right street, it's hard to find the right door. We arrange insider's guided tours of Tokyo's inspiring art scene, taking you to distinctive galleries and museums that are only known to those invested in the local scene. There's even an anime-inspired castle in the woods and a renovated public bathhouse from the 1950s.

A place renowned for dignified temples and shrines, a massive castle, and tranquil landscaped gardens, Kyoto is also unsurpassed for crafts. There we can arrange visits to authentic shops and factories making traditional goods made from pottery, glass, textile, lacquerware, and bamboo, where one can observe and work hands on with craftsmen. However, Kyoto is also a place of new things and ideas and the city has long been a place of innovation in the arts and sciences. Although modern art in Japan, along with almost everything else modern or new, is centered in Tokyo with contemporary Japanese artists eager to have their work shown and sold there the art scene in Kyoto, although always very small when compared to Tokyo, nonetheless in the last few years there has been a rise in galleries and vibrant scene in Kyoto devoted to ''new'' Japanese art. Several galleries have cropped up in the city, and in recent years, many young people and artists are discovering links to past, renovating machiya (traditional Kyoto merchant homes), converting them into stylish restaurants, cafes, galleries and shops. This has added a new face to the city landscape of ancient Kyoto.