Peter Shaw has been at various times a teacher, journalist, music critic, radio broadcaster, art curator and writer. Born at Taumarunui, he later lived in Tauranga, Thames and Auckland where in 1981 he became METRO's first Lively Arts writer. Peter taught design history at UNITEC, Auckland and then spent over twenty years as curator of the Fletcher Trust Art Collection. His History of New Zealand Architecture was first published in 1991 and went into three editions. He has designed exhibitions and written many art and ceramics catalogues as well as books on Waitangi and the architecture of Napier and Hastings. An accidental tourist to Japan in 1989, his curiosity about the country was awakened and in succeeding years he has made repeated visits, the result of which is this book. Peter Shaw now lives in Pirongia where he intermittently works on a memoir.