Kyoto in spring: what the cherry blossoms hide

Everyone visits Kyoto for the cherry blossoms, and most visitors leave only with photographs of them. The trees themselves are spectacular, but they are also a mask the city wears for tourists — beneath them are quieter things: a moss garden in early light, the smell of cedar at a hilltop temple, an old woman watering azaleas in a side street where no one with a guidebook will turn.