Don't judge a place by its media portrayal. I have always been someone who has had a fascination with the world. I've studied the world in great detail...its history, cultures, and geography. I have also traveled around...not as much as I'd like, but enough to realize one important thing. Books, TV shows, and other media lie. Well, it's dishonesty through omission. When we see images of the world, it's the vision that other people want to push on us. Many cities are ugly, and to hide this fact, they will pick the needle out of a haystack and skillfully take a picture of that needle while making sure to hide any trace of the hay. A good many cities have been destroyed through the onslaught of Modernism. However, others have survived relatively unscathed. This is a visual tale of two cities. The first is Kyoto. Hailed as the most beautiful city in Japan, it was a former capital of Japan and a center of Japanese high culture. It has generally avoided major