Kyoto has an almost mystical significance for the Japanese, partly because it was the capital from AD 794 to the Meiji Restoration, including, crucially, the sakoku period. This was the era of unification and relative peace, the lotus-eating time when the samurai class indulged in ritualised tea ceremonies, calligraphy, poetry, elaborate multi-course meals and precision gardening. At least, this is the commonly held perception of Japan in the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
