Our first print issue takes us on a journey into the real Kyoto—a setting of significance as the cultural heart of Japan and the place that we at STORIED call home.

We eschew the temples in favour of a photographic essay into daily life in the city, celebrating the beauty in the mundane through friend and photographer Joe Keating’s emotive images. We break free of the city, traversing the forests and coasts of rural Kyoto, and we talk tea with the women that are pushing boundaries within the centuries old industry. We visit the world of traditional tattooing, an art form overtly discouraged in Japan yet one steeped in spiritual history, discussing what it means to perform the technique in present-day Kyoto—a city known for its strict adherence to cultural rules.

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Now Available: The Kyoto Issue

INSIDE VOLUME 1

Seventy percent of Japan’s land is covered by forests, many of them making the perfect backdrop to peaceful temples and shrines. Here, an ancient religion tells us that spirits, called kami, can be found in all manner of natural things: the sky, the trees, the rivers and rain. 

The Way of The Gods

Pathways lit by stone lanterns greet travellers to Mt. Shigi in Nara Prefecture. A scene that could have been plucked from the animated pages of Hayao Miyazaki, the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, himself. Silence, save for the last few chirps from nestled birds before a night of slumber, is the setting in which you find Gyokuzoin, a shukubo clinging to the side of the mountain.

Sojourning With Monks On Mt. Shigi

Kurashiki is a quaint town where traditional houses have become home to innovative businesses  thanks to an influx of creatives from the vibrant city of Okayama, only a 20 minute train ride away. Lesser-known than Kyoto, but no less beautiful, Kurashiki has been drawing local tourists to its aesthetically-pleasing townscape for a number of years. 

Toutou Kurashiki, Gallery and Stay

Editor's Picks

Set on the shores of Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture is a modern design masterpiece. The Sagawa Art Museum, also known as the ‘floating museum,’ has a contemporary concrete and steel exterior sitting atop a shallow, rippling pool that reflects the sun’s rays to create a wonderfully soft aspect to the otherwise stark facade.

Sagawa Art Museum

Japan’s love of tea dates back over 1200 years, when it is thought that the monk Saicho brought the first seeds to Kyoto from China at the end of the Tang Dynasty (618-906). To this day, Kyoto, the spiritual heart of the Japanese tea ceremony, remains famous as one of the country’s finest tea-producing regions. 

The Single Origin Teas Redefining Wazuka's Heritage

In the midst of summer, families in Japan come together to honour their ancestors. They arrive at cemeteries to clean graves and sweep away debris, they leave gifts of fresh flowers and incense - even packs of cigarettes and bottles of sake or their beloved’s favourite beer - before preparing for the remaining Obon rituals, which have largely remained unchanged to this day.