Welcome to Japan
Japan is truly timeless, a place
where ancient traditions are fused with modern life as if it were the
most natural thing in the world.
Traditional Culture
On the surface Japan
appears exceedingly modern, but travelling around it offers numerous
opportunities to connect with the country's traditional culture. Spend
the night in a ryokan (traditional Japanese inn), sleeping on futons and
tatami mats, and padding through well-worn wooden halls to the
bathhouse (or go one step further and sleep in an old farmhouse).
Meditate with monks or learn how to whisk bitter matcha
(powdered green tea) into a froth. From the splendour of a Kyoto geisha
dance to the spare beauty of a Zen rock garden, Japan has the power to
enthral even the most jaded traveller.
Food
Wherever you are in Japan,
it seems, you're never far from a great meal. Restaurants often
specialise in just one dish – perhaps having spent generations
perfecting it – and pay close attention to every stage, from sourcing
the freshest, local ingredients to assembling the dish attractively. And
as you'll quickly discover, Japanese cuisine has great regional
variations. The hearty hotpots of the mountains are, for example,
dramatically different from the delicate sushi for which the coast is
famous. It's also intensely seasonal, meaning you can visit at a
different time of year and experience totally new tastes.
Outdoors
Japan is a long and
slender, highly volcanic archipelago. It's over two-thirds mountains,
with bubbling hot springs at every turn. In the warmer months there is
excellent hiking, through cedar groves and fields of wildflowers, up to
soaring peaks and ancient shrines (the latter founded by wandering
ascetics). In the winter, all this is covered with snow and the skiing
is world class. (And if you've never paired hiking or skiing with
soaking in onsen, you don't know what you've been missing.) Meanwhile in
the southern reaches, there are tropical beaches for sunning,
snorkelling and diving.
Ease of Travel
Japan is incredibly easy to
get around: you can do a whole trip using nothing but its immaculate,
efficient public transportation. The shinkansen (bullet train)
network now runs all the way from the southern tip of Kyūshū (the
southernmost of Japan's major islands) up to Hokkaidō (its
northernmost), and reasonably priced rail passes make it affordable.
Major cities have subway networks that are signposted in English and
these days we're seeing and hearing more English all over. But if
getting off the beaten track and outside your comfort zone is what
you're after, you can have that experience, too.
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