Beautiful Japan: A Souvenir

Slop along tree-lined streets filled with exclusive boutiques, stroll in ancient temple grounds, strike a business deal on the thirty-second floor of a chrome-and-glass skyscraper, get swept up in the crowds, or sip sake with newfound friends in a bustling neighborhood pub. Tokyo--once a maze of rice-paddies and quiet wooded villages called Edo--is now a tableaux of old and new, where wooden houses meet modern skyscrapers on streets with no names. Welcome to the gateway of the twenty-first century.

Narumi Yasuda is a leading Japanese landscape photographer whose work has appeared on calendars, and in numerous magazines and publications, including Nippon: Land of Beauty and Tradition and Japan: An Invitation (Tuttle).

Leza Lowitz holds a degree in English literature from UC Berkeley and a master's degree in creative writing from SFSU. She is the cotranslator of the art history book Japan: Spirit and Form (Tuttle) and has been a lecturer in English at Tokyo University.