Beautiful Japan

Beautiful Japan





Japan, known as Nihon or Nippon (日本) in Japanese, is an island nation in East Asia.
Japan is conventionally divided into nine regions, listed here from north to south:
1. Hokkaido - northernmost island and snowy frontier. Famous for its wide open spaces and cold winters.
2. Tohoku - largely rural north-east part of the main island Honshu, best known for seafood, skiing and hot springs
3. Kanto - coastal plain of Honshu, includes the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama
4. Chubu - mountainous middle region of Honshu, dominated by the Japan Alps and Japan's fourth-largest city Nagoya
5. Kansai - western region of Honshu, ancient capital of culture and commerce, including the cities of Osaka, Kyoto, Nara and Kobe
6. Chugoku - south-westernmost Honshu, a rural region best known for the cities of Hiroshima and Okayama, accessible by the Shinkansen.
7. Shikoku - smallest of the four main islands, a destination for Buddhist pilgrims, and Japan's best white-water rafting
8. Kyushu - southernmost of the four main islands, birthplace of Japanese civilization; largest cities Fukuoka and Kitakyushu
9. Okinawa - semi-tropical southern island chain reaching out toward Taiwan; formerly the independent Ryukyu Kingdom until it was annexed by Japan in 1879, its traditional customs and architecture are significantly different from the rest of Japan.




Cities


Japan has thousands of cities; these are nine of the most important to the traveller.
* Tokyo - the capital and main financial centre, modern and densely populated.
* Hiroshima - large port city, the first city to be destroyed by an atomic bomb
* Kanazawa - historic city on the west coast
* Kyoto - ancient capital of Japan, considered the cultural heart of the country, with many ancient Buddhist temples and gardens
* Nagasaki - ancient port city in Kyushu, the second city to be destroyed by an atom bomb
* Nara - first capital of a united Japan, with many Buddhist shrines, and historical buildings
* Osaka - large and dynamic city located in the Kansai region
* Sapporo - largest city in Hokkaido, famous for its snow festival
* Sendai - largest city in the Tohoku region, known as the city of forests due to its tree lined avenues and wooded hills





Other destinations

See Japan's Top 3 for some sights and places held in the high esteem by the Japanese themselves, and Off the beaten track in Japan for a selection of fascinating but less well known destinations throughout the country.
* Mount Fuji - iconic snow-topped volcano, and highest peak in Japan (3776 m)
* 88 Temple Pilgrimage - an arduous 1,647 km trail around the island of Shikoku
* Narrow Road to the Deep North - a route around northern Japan immortalized by Japan's most famous haiku poet

The Japanese

As an island nation shut off from the rest of the world for a long time (with mild exceptions from China and Korea), Japan is very homogeneous. Almost 99% of the population is of Japanese ethnicity. The largest minority are Koreans, around 1 million strong, many in their 3rd or 4th generations. There are also sizable populations of Chinese, Filipinos and Brazilians (mostly descendants of Japanese, the Japanese-Brazilian, also known as Nikkei). Though largely assimilated, the resident Chinese population maintains a presence in Japan's three Chinatowns in Kobe, Nagasaki and Yokohama. Indigenous ethnic minorities include the Ainu on Hokkaido, gradually driven north during the centuries and now numbering around 50,000 (although the number varies greatly depending on the exact definition used), and the Ryukyuan people of Okinawa.

The Japanese are well known for their politeness. Many Japanese are thrilled to have visitors to their country and are incredibly helpful to lost and bewildered-looking foreigners. Younger Japanese people are often extremely interested in meeting and becoming friends with foreigners as well. Do not be surprised if a Japanese person (usually of the opposite gender) approaches you in a public place and tries to initiate a conversation with you in somewhat coherent English. On the other hand many are not used to dealing with foreigners (外人 gaijin) and are more reserved and reluctant to communicate.

Visibly foreign visitors remain a rarity in much of Japan, and you will likely encounter moments when entering a shop causes the staff to seemingly panic and scurry off into the back. Don't take this as racism: they're just afraid that you'll try to address them in English and they'll be embarrassed because they can't understand or reply. A smile and a Konnichiwa ("Hello") often helps.

Holidays in Japan

Holidays in Japan
The most important holiday in Japan is New Year (お正月 Oshōgatsu), which pretty much shuts down the country from December 30 to January 3. Japanese head home to their families (which means massive transport congestion), eat festive foods and head out to the neighborhood temple at the stroke of midnight to wish in the New Year. Many Japanese often travel to other countries as well, and prices for airfares are very high.

In March or April, Japanese head out en masse for hanami (花見, lit. "flower viewing"), a festival of outdoors picnics and drunken revelry in parks, cleverly disguised as cherry blossom (桜 sakura) viewing. The exact timing of the famously fleeting blossoms varies from year to year and Japan's TV channels follow the progress of the cherry blossom front from south to north obsessively.
The longest holiday is Golden Week (April 27 to May 6), when there are four public holidays within a week and everybody goes on extended vacation. Trains are crowded and flight and hotel prices are jacked up to multiples of normal prices, making this a bad time to travel in Japan, but the weeks immediately before or after Golden Week are excellent choices.
Summer brings a spate of festivals designed to distract people from the intolerable heat and humidity (comparable to the US Midwest). There are local festivals (祭 matsuri) and impressive fireworks competitions (花火 hanabi) throughout the country. Tanabata (七夕), on July 7th (or early August in some places), commemorates a story of star-crossed lovers who could only meet on this day.
The largest summer festival is Obon (お盆), held in mid-July in eastern Japan (Kanto) and mid-August in western Japan (Kansai), which honors departed ancestral spirits. Everybody heads home to visit village graveyards, and transport is packed.

National holidays
Lunar holidays such as equinoxes may vary by a day or two; the list below is accurate for 2009. Holidays that fall on a weekend may be observed with a bank holiday on the following Monday. Keep in mind that most Japanese people take additional time off around New Year's, during Golden Week, and during Obon.
* January 1 - New Year's Day (ganjitsu 元日 or gantan 元旦 )
* January 12 (Second Monday of month) - Coming-of-Age Day (seijin no hi 成人の日)
* February 11 - National Foundation Day (kenkoku kinen no hi 建国記念の日)
* March 20 - Vernal Equinox Day (shunbun no hi 春分の日)
* April 29 - Showa Day (showa no hi 昭和の日)
* May 3 - Constitution Day (kenpō kinnenbi 憲法記念日)
* May 4 - Greenery Day (midori no hi みどりの日)
* May 5 - Children's Day (kodomo no hi こどもの日)
* May 6 - Children's Day - Observed
* July 20 (third Monday of month) - Marine Day (umi no hi 海の日)
* September 21 (third Monday of month) - Respect-for-the-Aged Day (keirō no hi 敬老の日)
* September 23 - Autumnal Equinox Day (shuubun no hi 秋分の日)
* October 12 (second Monday of month) - Sports Day (taiiku no hi 体育の日)
* November 3 - Culture Day (bunka no hi 文化の日)
* November 23 - Labor Thanksgiving Day (kinrō kansha no hi 勤労感謝の日)
* December 23 - The Emperor's Birthday (tennō tanjōbi 天皇誕生日)

The Japanese calendar
The Imperial era year, which counts from the year of ascension of the Emperor, is often used for reckoning dates in Japan, including transportation timetables and store receipts. The current era is Heisei (平成) and Heisei 21 corresponds to 2009. The year may be written as "H21" or just "21", so "21/1/5" is January 5, 2009. Western years are also well understood and frequently used.