Destination Guides
Ghibli Park and the Ghibli Museum: How to Get Tickets
Two separate places, 350 kilometres apart, with two separate ticket systems and no tickets at the door. Both release on the 10th…
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Guides that apply anywhere in Japan.
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Destination Guides
Mount Fuji Day Trips from Tokyo: Which One, and How to Get There
Four different day trips get called "Mount Fuji" by the tour companies, and they are not interchangeable. What each one costs you…
Getting Around
Tokyo to Kyoto: Shinkansen, Night Bus or Plane?
The Shinkansen is the right answer for almost everyone: 2 hours 15 minutes, about 14,000 JPY, no check-in. Here is what the…
Plan Your Trip
Japan with Children: What Works, and What to Skip
Japan is one of the easiest countries in the world to travel with children, with two exceptions: hotel rooms are sized for…
Japan Column
What Japanese People Think of Tourists — and the Unspoken Rules
Japan welcomed record visitor numbers and then started introducing tourist taxes, screens over viewpoints and residential no-go lanes. The honest version of…
Japan Column
Japan’s Ageing Population, Seen from the Train Window
Closed schools, unstaffed stations, and a taxi driver in his late seventies. Japan's demographic shift is not an abstraction — it is…
Japan Column
Why Japanese Cities Look the Way They Do
A noodle bar under a flat, a car park where a house was, wires overhead and no street names. Japanese cities look…
Japan Column
The Japanese School Day, from First Grade to Club Practice
Children clean their own classrooms, walk to school in groups from age six, and stay for club practice until six in the…
Japan Column
Konbini: How Convenience Stores Became National Infrastructure
Pay your taxes, collect a parcel, print a document, withdraw cash, and get fed during an earthquake. The Japanese convenience store stopped…
Japan Column
Why Are There So Many Vending Machines?
Around one machine for every thirty people, standing unattended on empty rural roads full of cash. The reasons are land prices, labour…