I don't think I know of Pico Iyer (I'm pretty sure I've never seen any of his books). Nara is an extremely wonderful place, though. It's a really nice mix of suburbian/small town living, with a ton of beautiful scenery, insane amounts of history and culture and is only a stone's throw from the metropolis that is Kyoto. He seems to have his feet in two places, though. Coming to Nara in the fall is great, but I can't quite wrap my head around the concept of living in Japan and not "experiencing the 4 seasons". Any foreigner who has lived in Japan long enough has been asked "Does your country have 4 seasons" an incredible number of times.<p>When I first moved to Japan, I asked an old woman how to learn about Japanese culture. She told me, "Spend a year with no heating and no air conditioning. Use only a hand fan in the summer. To be Japanese is to be acutely aware of the seasons". And so I did it (to be fair, Shizuoka rarely gets below freezing in the winter, so I wasn't going to die -- and I admit to 2 weeks of heat in March ;-) ). Going without heating or air conditioning in itself didn't actually teach me anything, as you may have already suspected. However, if the inside of your house has the same weather as the outside of your house, you have no incentive to stay inside. Indeed, walking around in the abundant sunshine was my only way of warming up. This meant that I had to go places and meet people and <i>live</i> in my town.<p>Every season <i>is</i> different too. I mean, it's not unique to Japan by any stretch of the imagination. However it was the first time in my life that I just went out and <i>looked</i> at everything every day. The birds are different. The fish are different. The sky is different. The flowers and plants are different. They change from day to day. It got so that I couldn't bear to be away from it -- I would miss the day that the crocuses open. Or I would miss the day that the namazu barge their way into the rice fields to spawn.<p>People wonder why the Japanese celebrate cherry blossoms. In fact, hanami (or flower watching) was originally meant for an earlier season when the ume (flowering plum, though actually a type of apricot) blooms. In the olden times cherry blossoms were seen as over the top and audacious. However, there is something to be said for cherry trees -- they bloom for a very short time. You might have only 1 day or at best 2 days to enjoy them when they are at the peak and so you must pay attention. Similarly, when the time is right, you must make sure to stop what you are doing and go to see the cherry blossoms. They will not come again for another full year.<p>This is what Japanese culture means to me. I'm not sure if it is only me, though :-) My town is my town because I live in it, not just exist in it. Every rock, every flower, and every animal is precious to me. I can't bear to be away from it. I also have to travel for work and every time, I leave a piece of me behind. For me, I can't imagine having my feet in 2 different places.