A Year in Japan

This delicately crafted artist's journal offers colorful impressions of a young woman's extended visit in Kyoto, Japan. Williamson's watercolors are playful, bright and spare, and each section illustrates a theme or topic that has inspired the artist/author over her travels to a country devoted to attention to detail. For example, Williamson explores numerous rituals of dining, such as offering a guest green tea accompanied by a piece of wagashi, or bean paste confection, and illustrates over two pages the elegant lunch she ordered at a temple serving shojin ryori, the vegetarian cuisine of Zen Buddhist monks. The sacred rope that unites the "male" and "female" rocks of the Shinto site Meoto-Iwa warrants both an intimate view (the rope) and a full, breathtaking seascape of the wedded rocks. Williamson renders eye-catching holidays from August's O'bon, featuring a trio of three white-socked and sandaled feet under pink kimonos, to April's stately sakura (cherry blossom) season. Some of the people Williamson depicts are sumo wrestlers wearing headphones and riding the subway, and two geishas side by side in full regalia—one apprentice, the other professional. For travelers to Japan, and those who treasure their visit, this is a splendid record. 350 color illus