{"id":41291,"date":"2022-02-02T10:00:09","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T01:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/feb\/02\/covid-robbed-kyoto-of-foreign-tourists"},"modified":"2022-02-02T10:00:09","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T01:00:09","slug":"covid-robbed-kyoto-of-foreign-tourists-now-it-is-not-sure-it-wants-them-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=41291","title":{"rendered":"Covid robbed Kyoto of foreign tourists \u2013 now it is not sure it wants them back"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>City that had 8 million overseas visitors in 2019 \u2013 including free-spending parties of Chinese people \u2013 is getting used to the peace and quiet<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/series\/coronavirus-live\/latest\">Coronavirus \u2013 latest updates<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/coronavirus-outbreak\">See all our coronavirus coverage<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Until a couple of years ago, negotiating the hill leading to one of Kyoto\u2019s most popular temples would have tested the patience of a Buddhist saint. The arrival of yet another coachload of sightseers would send pedestrians fleeing to narrow paths already clogged with meandering visitors on their way to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kiyomizudera.or.jp\/en\/\">Kiyomizu-dera<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>That was before Covid-19. Today, the cacophony of English and Chinese, and a smattering of other European and Asian languages, has been replaced by the chatter of Japanese children on school excursions. Shops selling souvenirs and wagashi sweets are almost empty, their unoccupied staff perhaps reminiscing about more lucrative times.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/feb\/02\/covid-robbed-kyoto-of-foreign-tourists\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>City that had 8 million overseas visitors in 2019 \u2013 including free-spending parties of Chinese people \u2013 is getting used to the peace and quietCoronavirus \u2013 latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageUntil a couple of years ago, negotiating the hill &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2863,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,1066,88,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-coronavirus","category-japan","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2863"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41292,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41291\/revisions\/41292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}