We wake from jet-lagged dreams into a deserted house. Our hosts have gone to work already. With all the shutters down it is pitch black inside and a struggle to get up. We step out into a country of myths and anime, of temple spirits and mysterious cats. In the garden is a persimmon tree with one piece of fruit high up in the top branches. We have to get it and with Kai I climb up to reach, twist and pluck it from its hold. The flesh is sweet, delicious and other-worldly, as is everything in this extraordinary country.

Leaving Tokyo (new capital) for Kyoto (old capital), we take the bus along the coast. As we come round a bend a large harbour appears and Kai asks very loudly: “Is this Pearl Harbour?” Kyoto is our home for a month and as Jeannie lived here for four years in the past we have the perfect guide. It is a month of reminiscences for Jeannie and the overlaying of memories with our present experiences. She cannot find one of her old houses but, incredibly, finds her white handprint on a roof rafter in a building where she danced a Butoh performance twenty years ago.

Japan is indescribably pleasant: it feels so clean, safe and ordered, much like how I imagined it would be from the anime films we have seen. Rather than having your bins kicked over, half your rubbish strewn down the street and a disdainful look as you go to work, the rubbish trucks here announce their arrival with a jingle and a calm female voice thanking you for putting out your garbage.

Lilah states very clearly and with conviction: “I will come back and live in Kyoto one day and I will have a cat”. Kai wants to be a Zen gardener. We visit another astonishing temple garden again today with herons and cranes peering into the pond at the carp, Japanese acers and gingko trees turning gold and red. Travel agents sell autumn leaf tours here. A large sign says “Please be careful of the bee”. Rather alarming – we leave in a hurry.

Across the road from our house is Shisendo, yet another beautiful Zen garden. Some of the gravel is raked so it is for contemplating not walking across. Crimson autumn trees provide the backdrop. There is a sozu here, a deer-scarer. It is a piece of bamboo on a pivot that fills with water and tips, making a banging noise on a rock and emptying the water, so to tip back and refill. Across a small bridge is another garden and a place for washing. A small trickle of water enters a depression in a rock. There is a bamboo scoop used for pouring the water onto your hands. We spend much time here: just sitting, just looking. Clean hands, clean minds.

Mount Hiei is close to our house in the north east of the city. We walk up to the temple complexes on the top, making up haiku verse as we go. The simplicity and brevity of haiku with their alternating lines of five and seven syllables seems entirely appropriate for Japan where fully formed artistic endeavour is embedded in all aspects of life. As we return down we collect fallen acer leaves, looking for perfection in colour. We notice that all the leaves have either five or seven points to them, the haiku form reflected in the natural world; art mirroring nature or is it the other way round?

All four of us are bewitched by this country. It cannot be put into words. If you can, you must try to visit Kyoto once in your life.