NEWS OF TRAVEL JAPAN

The cherry blossom season has come! It’s about two weeks earlier than every year. Recently many foreigners come to Japan in order to see cherry blossom trees and they will schedule it according to the time of blossoms, unfortunately, many visitors might fail to see cherry blossom trees this year. If you plan to come to Japan for cherry blossom sightseeing, you should reschedule your itinerary earlier. Meanwhile if you have enough days in your journey, it is no problem. The season for cherry blossoms in a region is about ten days. However the islands of Japan is so long from southern Okinawa prefecture to northern Hokkaido prefecture that the season of cherry blossoms in Japan has about a two months span. So even if you fail to see cherry blossoms in a city like Osaka City you can recover it in a more northern region. To go to a northern destination in order to chase cherry blossoms is a cool and stylish behavior for many Japanese people, then you will be welcomed by the people of th...

Culture in a country is the result made by the specific customs based on the thoughts of the people, if it is true, to try to look out for the specific custom of a country where you visit is a joyful challenge during your traveling time. When I visited foreign countries I experienced the different customs from Japan and I was happy to know it. Many anthropologists say that Japanese culture is especially different from cultures of other countries. Then foreigners visiting Japan will feel pleasure by finding out the different customs from their countries. Warikan is the one specific Japanese custom. Warikan is to split the bill among members who ate dishes and drank in restaurants and it is generally a popular custom in Japan. I have a foreign friend who has been in Japan from Australia and I sometimes have drinking parties with him. He knows Japanese customs but perhaps his true sense depends on western customs. At paying the bill when I suggested “sloping warikan” to him as a mat...

The number of foreign travelers who visit the countryside in Japan are increasing year after year. Why do they go there? What do they find there? Many Japanese people, who live in urban cities and in the countryside as well, don’t know the reason why foreigners visit the countryside where there is no interest for Japanese. Since one hundred and fifty years ago Japan has pursued the western industrial society and system. Moreover Japanese people have not turned their faces to the countryside. For many Japanese people, the countryside in Japan is not a living place but a only heartfelt hometown which they think far from the countryside.  One of the reasons why foreign travelers visit the countryside in Japan might be that the countryside close to nature is beautiful and pleasant. One hundred and fifty years ago many foreigners visited the countryside in Japan, many of them said in their travel diaries that the countryside in Japan was beautiful like painting pictures. Nowadays the ...

There were two pictures on the wall of an architectural design office that I visited. The upper one is the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, who was a globally famous architectural designer (For him Simon & Garfunkkel sang;”So long, Frank Lloyd Wright”). Another was the Katsura Imperial Villa. These two pictures were the same in that both were architecture surrounded by woods. Nonetheless I felt that these two pictures were similar but different except for the styles of western and Japanese. I didn’t know the reason why the owner of this office adorned these two pictures, but these pictures hit upon an idea in my mind to visit the Katsura Imperial Villa in order to resolve my curiosity. After several months my wife and I stood at the entrance in front of the Katsura Imperial Villa on a Saturday morning in February. It was a little bit cold but there were already about forty people waiting. Half of them had reservations including us, the other half had non reservation. People without...