hey,
i was in kyoto/osaka in the summer. i'd suggest johnny hillwalker's walking tour (given in english, meets at kyoto station)--it was really enjoyable and he takes you to a lot of less famous but important sites and teaches you about japanese culture/history of kyoto. an interesting place to wander: older area around kiyomizu and down the shopping streets. ando's garden of contemporary art was ok, if you can catch musicians playing at isozaki's kyoto concert hall--the acoustics are great! wandered in before lunchtime when they were just practicing.
there's also this place in kyoto, i'm sorry i can't remember the name, take a rail up to a hike...meals are served directly on dining platforms on the river at onsen hotels set in forests...

in osaka, be sure to get an appointment with the church of light--or else you may not be able to go in!

hope this helped...

if you're interested, try to visit some older towns and stay at an onsen where they feed you and there are hot spring baths. i stayed in a few on the old route between tokyo and kyoto.

The only way to get into the Crurch of the Light is to go to a service. There is one on Sundays @ 10. After the service they let all of the visitors (they usually make up half of the service) take pictures with the lights of. It's so worth it though.

I went to the Sky building at night and it was awesome.

Try takomaki.

5 minutes south of kyoto station on the train is Fushimi Inari where the trails are lined with thousand of Torrii. Go in the late afternoon or in the morning, the light is amazing. Night time is also amazing but hard to photograph. it's free and open 24 hours.

not true, just call ahead to the Church of Light (in Japanese) and they will let you in to take pictues and so on.

As long as there's not a huge coach-load of you its cool.

oh and check out www.super-deluxe.com for crazy art / design events while you are in town. its a little queit right now since its golden week here and everyone is on holiday. you'll learn about that if you try and book train tickets and hotel rooms anywhere other than tokyo right now.

thanks!

Just woke up and walked out on a fire exit staircase of my hotel...
and,

ahhh the funny world of architects...always finding stuff nobody would notice...

there is this quite amazing Jerde shopping mall project, a few blocks away...Namba park shoppping mall

http://www.architectureweek.com/2003/1112/design_1-2.html

Let me know if any archinecter's in Osaka for some sake tonight or tomorrow! (May 2nd-3rd)

my brother is performing (he is pro street performer and university student) at namba parks. bald guy...he loves namba. i don't mind it cuz it actually works, though the aesthetics are funny to me as a canadian...clear rip off of doug cardinal's work, but not as good...

i went to the church of the light and had the place to myself (and my wife) for as long as we wanted. the pastor was very kind. better to make appntmnt if you can, but showing up cold may work too (it did for us). that building is still one of my favorites, though i generally no lnger care for ando's buildings anymore...

Hmm...I'm kindof confused now. When we talked to the pastor at the church of the light he told us we had to go to a service. Even after explaining I was coming all the way from Boston. Maybe they were busy the days we wanted to go?

calpoly, the place with the eating areas on the river is called Kibune. It's really nice up there, but don't expect a cheap meal!

I picked the wrong day to Kyoto when everything was closed except the temples at the far end of the city... it might've been a monday.

As for Church of Light, I did call ahead, asked them if they spoke english in japanese, they did, so I asked them in english if it was ok to visit. The pastor (I assume) told me everyday was ok except sunday. Had the whole place to ourselves. Nobody was around.