It was dusk in Kyoto. The paths in the temple garden had grown quiet, the red of the maple leaves was losing its glow. Suddenly a rickshaw appeared, carrying two geisha, an apparition of white faces and sleek black buns.

The rickshaw careened around a corner and the elegant women disappeared. Geisha — sophisticated, highly trained women who traditionally provided female companionship at gatherings of influential men — do not play the important societal role they once did, but they still do exist in Kyoto’s Gion district.

Not every visitor to Japan will spot a geisha. But they will see the occasional woman dressed in the graceful, beautiful silk kimono, perhaps standing at a bus stop or visiting a temple.

In Kyoto, teenage girls relish being wrapped in the garment’s complex layers at a rental shop and wearing it for a day of touring shrines and temples. The movement represents a return to tradition; Japanese women say they are treated with greater respect wearing it.

But Japanese women don’t need a kimono to earn title as the most elegant women in the world. Young or old, they are just plain classy — slender figures, perfect posture, graceful movement and glossy black hair falling in a perfect coif.

Japanese culture embraces qualities of grace and dignity, reflected not only in its people, but in how things work. And it’s a good thing it does. Otherwise, the visitor on this tiny island packed with too many people would be simply miserable, and Tokyo, minus the manners, would be just plain nuts. 

But manners and order prevail. You’ll see a pedestrian stop in his tracks to pick up a tiny speck of paper from the spotless sidewalk. Drop your sunglasses and passersby leap to pick them up for you. Vending machines sit out in the open, immune to vandals. Cab drivers in Tokyo wear black suits and caps, and the passenger seat is lined with a clean, white, doily-edged seat cover.

Nor are cab drivers apt to clean out your wallet. In my tourist daze, I repeatedly put down 10,000 yen notes instead of 1,000s — hundreds of dollars instead of 10. Drivers diligently handed back the big bucks and pointed to the meter showing the smaller amount.

The trick to traveling in Japan is advance preparation.

In my case, after thumbing through several guidebooks, I realized I had no idea what I wanted to see. There’s no Great Wall, no Empire State Building, no center city, no hop-on, hop-off bus to sites of interest. I knew I wanted to see a temple, but the guidebooks listed dozens. The modern architecture my architect son wanted to see was scattered around Tokyo.

Same was true of shopping — there’s department store shopping in Ginza, haute couture along the tree-lined street of Omote-sando, upscale shopping in Roppongi, traditional Japanese crafts and trinkets on Nakamise-dori, electronics in the Akihabara district. Or did I want museums in Ueno, or youth culture in Harajuku? It was such a spin of multisyllabic words, I didn’t know where to begin. So I contacted the Japanese National Tourist Office for advice. They pointed me toward their programs of Goodwill Guides — volunteer guides who lead tourists around this confusing city.

Through this program, we got the best tour of Japan from enthusiastic Japanese who had us flying around the metro trains in Tokyo, viewing a kimono fashion show in Kyoto, touring the pleasantly quieter city of Kamakura just an hour’s train ride from Tokyo. In retrospect, we realized we would have been lost without our guides.

On your own, there’s no problem taking cabs in Tokyo, and we did, but you can’t cover much ground in Tokyo by cab.

The alternative is metro trains that flash around Tokyo and spider-web all over the city, but traveler beware — these are no-nonsense trains, mazes of tunnels leading to different trains, doors that snap shut about 30 seconds after disgorging passengers. An eerie carnivallike calliope tune signals the door’s closing, with passengers sometimes making wild acrobatic leaps to beat the door.

Like trusting kindergartners we trotted after our guides, dashing through stations and flying by train all over Tokyo, zooming in and out of stations taking in dozens of sights with the guide’s running explanation of cultural details.

There’s so much in Japan we also wouldn’t have otherwise understood without our Japanese friends. Though much in Japan bears a great resemblance to American life, there’s much in this country that’s puzzling.

“Maids” fit into that category. Girls dressed in French maid uniforms handing out fliers in the street, posters of maids in train stations — what is that?

Our guide, Harumi Sudoh, a housewife, took us up a little elevator in a store in Akihabara, the electronics district. There we saw “Cure Maid,” a “maid cafe” where “nerdy guys” (her words) too shy to have girlfriends dare to venture. The pretty young girls, in black dresses and white aprons, serve cappuccinos and light meals, and speak “sweetly” to the boys, Sudoh-san said. I even saw a “maid” gently holding a boy’s hand, which Sudoh-san assured us is as far as it ever goes. I was struck, though, by the allure and fascination of the maids — was this the modern-day equivalent of the geisha?

The puzzles of Japanese culture get right down to the basics, though, when you’re seated in front of a traditional Japanese meal that is stunningly presented, and looks like nothing you’ve ever seen.

My son and I are sushi fans — and it is fresh and easily found here, fresh sushi packages are even available in convenience stores.

But whenever possible, we ate at traditional Japanese restaurants — which turned up some very unfamiliar food. Sticky, gummy pasty white stuff in a tiny bowl — it wasn’t good, but at least with the help of my guide I learned to put it on my rice rather than stretch it skyward with my chopsticks.

Another puzzle was the number of women and children we saw in kimono around the temples. Our visit in late October was nicely timed to see sichigosan, a celebration for children ages 3, 5 and 7. Celebrations occur up to the official day of Nov. 15.

Tracking down the architecture my son wanted to see was also tricky. Overall, Tokyo is a harum-scarum sprawl of mediocre construction, faceless buildings and unlovely billboards — with ornate shrines and temples tucked among the effluvia. Modern-day architectural masterworks, such as Tokyo International Forum and the International Museum of Children’s Literature, are here, but you have to hunt for them.

Our guides took us to those sites, visiting quieter areas of Tokyo such as Ueno park where museums are. They taught us to waft incense smoke at ourselves at the temple of Senso-ji to cure ailing body parts. In the shopping stalls of Nakamise-dori, a small red statue caught my son’s eye. When our guide explained it was a god who meditated so hard his arms fell off, my son bought it as a perfect gift for a former professor.

By day’s end we were traipsing through the electronics district of Akihabara, dazed by lights and hawkers shouting out the day’s bargains from atop ladders.

We met another guide in Kamakura, a great way to get out of Tokyo for the day, and another in Kyoto, where we stayed in a traditional ryokan.

We also made our way on our own part of the time — the adventuresome highlight being Tsukiji Fish Market at 4:30 a.m., crazily busy with racing forklifts and sharp knives whacking huge fish in the blocks-long market that takes in an eighth of the world’s catch. Tsukiji Market earned rank among my top 10 favorite travel adventures.

But our lasting image of Japan is the graciousness of Japanese people, and especially the guides who showed us their country.

To all I say “arigato gozaimasu,” and I say that with pride because it took me a week to learn it.

If you go

It’s difficult to know what part of Tokyo to stay in, since city sites are all over. Try to stay in the area where you’ll be spending most of your time.

* Takanawa Prince Hotel, Shinagawa, Tokyo. 011-81-3-3447-1111; fax 011-81-3-3446-0849. We found the Takanawa Prince Hotel a good option, walking distance from the Shinagawa Station from which we could take the shinkansen, or bullet train, to Kamakura and Kyoto. Hotel clerks and bellmen spoke enough English to be helpful, and rooms were spacious by Japanese standards. A Western-style breakfast buffet fortified us for the day’s offerings of tiny Japanese meals. Takanawa Prince is a tourist-class hotel. Room rates start at $128 a night as listed on the Web site, www.princehotelsjapan.com/takanawaprincehotel/index.asp.

* Park Hyatt Tokyo, Shinjuku, Tokyo. 011-81-3-5322-1234; fax 011-81-3-5322-1288.

OK, so we had to spend one night at the hotel where “Lost in Translation” was filmed. It was worth it for the spectacular views of Tokyo from all over the hotel; the hotel’s first floor is on the 14th floor of the building. The New York Bar, where the Bill Murray character hung out, lazy and intimidated to leave the hotel, does offer an invitation to stick around. Tokyo by night sparkles out the huge windows; the Park Hyatt’s three restaurants also feature the stunning view. On a clear day, you can swim in the pool here and admire Mount Fuji; we weren’t so lucky. However, it was fun to work out in the extensive fitness center and admire Tokyo. The hotel has its own library, plus sparely designed and luxuriously comfortable rooms, and deep bathtubs inviting serious soaks. Room rates at Tokyo Park Hyatt start at $332 on the Web site, www.tokyo.park.hyatt.com.

* Grand Hyatt Tokyo, 011-81-3-4333-1234; fax 011-81-3-4333-8123; www.hyatt.com. This hotel in the exclusive shopping and entertainment complex of Roppingi qualifies as uber-upscale. You may not be able to afford to stay here, but if your trip to Japan leaves you lonely for American faces, this is where ex-pats hang, especially at the Oak Door restaurant for a good steak and the Oak Door Bar for a good martini. Room rates start at $392 on the Web site.

* Tsujiki Fish Market, 5-2-1, Tsujiki, Chuo-ku, Tokyo. Grab a cab and be here by 4:30 a.m. where you’ll find the world’s largest fish market alive with chopping knives, flying small motorized trucks — you really have to watch out for them — and a swarm of buyers picking up the catch of the day for restaurants. Buy a coffee from a vending machine and wander around. The vegetable market is in front of the fish market, so wend your way back past that to the fish smell and see where an eighth of the world’s catch gets sold. It’s pure madness. Find your way to the cold building where the giant tuna auction takes place; you’ll think you’re in a fish version of “Night of the Living Dead,” with giant tuna carcasses lying all around. Watch as buyers peel back a slice of tuna and feel it between their fingers, and auction workers paint the tuna with red numbers (ketchup!). The auctioneer sings out a more tuneful song than his American counterparts. At 6:30 a.m. the sushi shops open and you can have sushi and beer with the fishermen.