It is now just over a year since the release of HIDDEN PATHS - Walking Historical Kyoto Volume 4, which was closely followed by the HIDDEN PATHS Omnibus Edition. Due to the corona virus pandemic causing numerous restrictions and not wanting to encourage the idea of going out and about during this difficult time there has been no rush or deadline for publishing Volume 5 of the continuing series of historical walking guides around the city and surrounding areas of Kyoto.
In the interim I worked on and released PARANORMAL KANSAI - Mysteries & Unexplained Stories of West Japan. Thank you to all of those that purchased the paperback or downloaded the digital version of the book.
PARANORMAL KANSAI didn't set out to be like HIDDEN
PATHS in laying out paranormal routes to follow and discover but to simply introduce random locations where strange, unexplained, or encounters of a paranormal bent have said to have been witnessed or occurred within the Kansai region (Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, Hyogo, Wakayama, Shiga, and Mie). Some of these locations are part of past HIDDEN PATHS routes or could be included when putting the books together and so acts as a companion to the HIDDEN PATHS series.
I have been thinking about HIDDEN PATHS Volume 5 since last autumn and now have 3-4 routes planned for the book. This blog post is aimed at giving a preview of what to expect without giving the exact locations at this point (I'll leave that for when it is finished and ready to release). At the moment about a third of the book is written in rough draft format.The direction of the book this time has been dictated by the pandemic and restrictions for travel and social distancing totally. The routes included will be outside of the city of Kyoto (one of which is pictured below left), in places where very few people will be found or travelling to (though one location included, not the whole walking route, is usually busy at a certain time of year under normal conditions). These routes go into nature, a bit of hiking (but not full on mountain hikes), places that offer peace and quiet, and of course HISTORY. At the moment there are no sites on the routes that are specifically paranormal (as HIDDEN PATHS are not books on that subject) but there are folklore connections in some cases, and who knows, maybe between now and the completion of Vol. 5 a paranormal story could well unexpectedly come up.
I would like to thank those that have purchased any of the HIDDEN PATHS books, and especially anyone that has walked any of the routes from the books (would love to see your pics or hear about your experiences) and I look forward to hopefully releasing HIDDEN PATHS - Walking Historical Kyoto Volume 5 in the autumn of this year (2021) at the earliest.
HIDDEN PATHS - Walking Historical Kyoto Volumes 1-4, Omnibus Edition, and PARANORMAL KANSAI - Mysteries & Unexplained Stories of West Japan are all available from every regions of AMAZON in paperback and digital formats.
For further information visit the website - www.hiddenpathskyoto.com
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