To get to Alex Kerr's 400-year-old house in Kameoka, Kyoto Prefecture, it takes time.

Although Kerr, famous for chronicling Japan’s profligate public spending as much as for his efforts to restore “lost Japan,” spends between six to eight months of the year in the country, he’s rarely at his Kameoka home, a former Buddhist nunnery that was moved into a Shinto shrine, where he has lived since 1977.

Instead, Kerr bounces around Japan: He's on a permanent speaking circuit, talking with politicians, mayors, bureaucrats, company executives, community activists and students; he's in demand as a host for elaborate and exclusive multicourse dinners that pair some of Japan's best chefs with off-the-beaten-track locations; he's been a specially appointed Visit Japan ambassador since 2008; and there's also the substantial business of restoring houses and revitalizing rural communities.