After being in Japan for a while, you get to know a place by its festivals.
See a gaggle of folk in a TV clip freezing their extremities off while gawping at vast, whimsical sculptures carved from snow and ice, and you recognize immediately they're in Sapporo.
Catch shots of a high-class harlot (oiran) exquisitely gowned and teetering on improbably high footwear in a grand procession of others likewise historically attired, and you know it's Kyoto.