Tokyo
Life in Tokyo moves at a well-oiled clip, with an energy that borders on mania and an obsession with newness that seems to make all ideas quickly obsolete.
Life in Tokyo moves at a well-oiled clip, with an energy that borders on mania and an obsession with newness that seems to make all ideas quickly obsolete.
For fans of traditional Japanese culture, Kansai is an unmissable destination.
Kyoto is the storehouse of Japan’s traditional culture and the stage on which much of Japanese history was played out.
Kyūshū has long been Japan’s most internationally minded region.
Central Honshū is Japan’s heartland in both geography and attitude.
A land of exquisite ceramics, tranquil mountain villages and urban vibrance, Western Honshū is most known for the legacy of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Few Japanese, and even fewer tourists, make it as far north as Hokkaidō, Japan’s final frontier.
Osaka is the working heart of Kansai.
For more than a millennium, o-henrō (pilgrims) have walked clockwise around Shikoku in the footsteps of the great Buddhist saint Kōbō Daishi (774–835), who achieved enlightenment on the island of his birth.
Welcome to the other Japan, where pebble gardens and cherry blossoms give way to white-sand beaches and swaying palm trees.
The coastal towns of Kanagawa-ken are just a short train ride from Tokyo, yet can seem eons away.
May’s gentle showers, collected, become the rushing Mogami River.
Nagasaki-ken is the westernmost prefecture of Kyūshū, taking in the Shimabara Peninsula as well as its regional capital Nagasaki.
The northern prefecture of Fukuoka will be the arrival point for most visitors to Kyūshū, whether they cross over by road or tunnel from Shimonoseki or fly straight into Fukuoka city’s international airport.
Nagasaki is a vibrant city, but its fate as the second atomic bomb target overshadows its early history of contact with the Portuguese and Dutch.
The southern half of the Nansei-shotō is Okinawa-ken, which is the furthest south of Japan’s prefectures.
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