Top three places to visit that are not Tokyo, Mt. Fuji, Kyoto or Osaka:

No matter where you go in the world you are restricted to where you can arrive & depart from due to flight schedules, border crossings, geography, popularity of location and accessibility of airports to name a few This often creates a ‘golden route’. When traveling to Japan from North America, this is a major consideration for trip planning, and guests are most often going to arrive and depart from Tokyo or Osaka. For your first time to Japan, you must visit Tokyo & Kyoto with Osaka & Hakone being next on the list. If visiting Japan a second time, you will be visiting Tokyo or Osaka again due to international flight schedules, but the options for where to go in between are extensive. For those who have a bit more time on their first trip or are on a return trip, let’s look at some other options that deserve your attention.

Kumano & Kii Peninsula

Located in the mountainous Kii peninsula south of Osaka, Kumano is a sacred region home to remote hot springs, pilgrimage walking routes, a rich cultural & natural heritage and unique immersive experiences. Now called the Kumano kodo, these pilgrimage routes in the region were once walked by aristocrats and retired emperors. In 2004, three sacred sites in the region and the pilgrimage trails connecting them were designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Walk along these pilgrimage routes in search of panoramic viewpoints, beautiful mountain trails and local villages. To visit Tokyo, Kyoto & Kumano would certainly be a fulfilling tour of Japan. Big city with the ever present neon lights, the temples, shrines & geisha of Kyoto, and a traditional & scenic outdoor adventure in Kumano. Another notable mention of the region in addition to the Kumano kodo, is a stay on Koyasan (Mount Koya). Koyasan’s complex of temples and pagodas are among the most popular in the country for an authentic temple-stay.

Shirakawa-go & Gokayama

Although Tokyo is a must, you will want to see the ‘real’ Japan. The other real Japan. You know, the traditional wooden homes with sliding shoji doors, the swaying lanterns hanging from storefronts, the countryside scenery we’ve become familiar with through cinema; you know, that Japan. Both named UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Shirakawa-go & Gokayama regions are understandably popular among foreign tourists, notably for the village feel walking among the traditional gassho-zukuri farmhouses. These are the homes you’ve likely seen in photos. The same photos that are likely pushing you to visit Japan. The thatched roofs are constructed to resemble a Buddhist monk’s ‘hands of prayer’ and more practically not to collapse under the heavy layers of snow that fall every winter. A walk through the villages combined with visits to Takayama & Kanazawa can easily be added to your tour with easy accessibility from Tokyo via Nagoya. 

Snow Monkeys

Everyone has seen images or video of snow capped monkey’s steaming in an outdoor bath during the dead of winter. Many ask where this is, and most conclude that it must be far from human contact. These monkeys are Japanese Macaque’s and most often are seen bathing in a hot spring in the Jigokudani Valley in Nagano Japan. This can be seen with your own eyes, relatively easily. Monkeys can be seen year round in the region, and with some convincing they will even enter the hot spring in the summer months, but the best time to visit, due to the abundance of snow, is from December to March, with January & February being the best. Take the train from Tokyo to Nagano (1.5hrs) and the train from Nagano to Yamanouchi & Yudanaka Station (approx. 1 hr) and then a short bus ride and walk up to the hot spring. Many tours can also be pre-booked including a one day tour from Tokyo. Talk about accessible.

Japanese kids get their kicks at karate ceremony

A friend reports a strange sighting in Kyoto when he was travelling their in January – he spotted dozens of youngsters clad only in white pajamas standing in the frigid waters of the city’s lovely Oigawa River.

When he investigated the odd sight, he discovered the pajamas were actually karate uniforms and the kids were being baptized, so to speak, as part of their training regime.

The “baptismal” ceremony is carried out every January and those who can last one hour in the ice-cold river, which is fed by the snowcapped mountains that ring beautiful Kyoto, you get a passing grade.

While standing in the water, the kids, some as young as 5, carry out exercises like kicking and punching and most of them seemed to be having a good time, according to my friend, despite the cold water temperature.

Just another unexpected but awesome sight you can expect to see when you’re travelling through the cities and towns of amazing Japan.

Subway map or bowl of udon...?

Japan is notorious worldwide for their technology, crowds of commuters, and their efficiency in just about anything, and there is nowhere that this is more apparent than at a train station. If you've been to Japan you've been on a train and the subway. If you were not a train, you missed seeing an integral part of how the country operates. The train is how the country moves. To my pleasure, at some hours of the day it appears that the whole country may be on the move at once. Crowds of suits and fashionable clothes move in all directions. I stand in the middle and stare at a subway map. Sadly you can't aimlessly just follow the crowd and expect to get where you're going. It's fast and can get you just about anywhere, if you have an idea how to get there. There are express trains, limited express trains, super express trains, Hikari trains, Nozomi bullet trains, and on and on and on. It's quite possible, and a rite of passage, to get on the wrong train. Where is Motohasunuma?

Not unlike any other time visiting a new city, I arrived in Tokyo, checked-in, and then headed out. First stop, directly to the hotel staff for help with my subway map. Soon enough, I'm in a department store that's blasting Christmas tunes as I make my way past a giant Christmas tree down to an incredibly long escalator ride followed by another escalator ride to the subway station. I had my notes on which subway line to take to get where I wanted to go, but I stood for a few moments trying to make sense of the subway map before purchasing a ticket. Was it the right ticket? Who knew. I thought I knew what direction I was to going though, so that direction it was. It was the right ticket. The next time on the subway, I was on the wrong train, had the wrong ticket, and needed to recalculate my fare with the station staff. I figured it out, and the subway now makes a little more sense.

The Tokyo Metro is clean and certainly among the best in the world, and by the rows and rows of nodding heads, the metro provides it's passengers a good rest as well.  With Japanese/English electronic displays, it's simple to see where you are, and the friendly nature of the locals helps make it all that much easier.

Hope Springs Eternal in Japan again

Kyoto, Japan - Smiles - lots of smiles. 

That’s what a friend of mine who visited Japan in January was seeing during his 6-day visit.

It appears the lovely Japanese people are finally recovering from the 1-2 punch Mother Nature delivered last March - first an earthquake and then a devastating tsunami.

After a year of staggering from the physical and mental scars left from those overwhelming events, the Japanese have reason to smile again – tourism is beginning to return to pre-disaster levels and everyday life is almost back to normal.

It’s never easy to get tourists to return to countries where political upheaval or natural disasters occur. But Japan appears to bucking that trend because foreign tourists are eager to show their support to this nation, which has suffered so much in the last 100 years.

With cherry blossom season just around the corner, you can expect there will be a lot more smiles being flashed at the tourists who come to this loveliest of all nations in the spring.

Japan continues to blossom...

We all know that when you plan to go on that memorable trip there is often a great deal of planning and research involved by yourself and/or your travel agent. Or, at the very least, we can acknowledge that this would certainly help. Unfortunately however, even with all this planning you may, for whatever reason, need to postpone or cancel your travel plans.

Sometimes even, your travel provider knows very well that you will be calling to cancel well before you start dialing.

When one of the largest off-shore earthquakes ever recorded unleashed a tsunami that devastated Japan in March 2011, many people cancelled. A lot of people cancelled. Some questions were asked, suggestions were given, and helpful advice was offered. Such expert advice helped guests decide not to cancel but just to re-route their Japan itinerary. Tourism would survive.

       When news broke that another earthquake hit the country 1 month later and that the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant was heavily damaged causing a nuclear meltdown releasing radioactive materials, everyone cancelled. Reasons? No need; we get it.

Those that did not outright cancel decided to route elsewhere; ideally faraway from nuclear fallout. Japan tourism was in trouble.

The world watched as unknown heroes risked their lives in Fukushima to avoid an all out nuclear disaster as residents were told to evacuate. We watched as Japanese bound together to help one another find lost loved ones, beloved pets, and any remnants of their homes. We watched a nation admirably support their countrymen during a most tragic time. Youtube was filled with devastating videos and moving stories, and just as quickly we started to see a clean up unlike anywhere in the world. We are now seeing a country that was hit by its largest earthquake on record spawning storey’s high Tsunami waves make some of the most impressively big strides back to normalcy. Most notably, Tourism.

In November 2011, both the Japan Tourism Agency and the Japan National Tourism Organization hosted the Visit Japan Travel Mart, an annual gathering of worldwide agencies offering trips to Japan, overseas media agencies and local Japan suppliers, hoteliers, and operators to speak about all things Japan. The main objective: to promote Japan’s tourism by all means possible. This year’s Travel Mart meant a lot.

I had the opportunity to attend this year in the city of Yokohama, nearby Tokyo, and by the number of operators from Canada to China to India to France and beyond, it’s clear that Japan’s tourism is on the move and that travelers will continue to come. In fact, many have started to return already, and trends are showing that things have certainly started to pick up. Tourism has survived.

Japan is fascinating and different. Big yet small. Her culture & tradition, acclaimed worldwide, remains well in tact and with more intriguing and exciting options becoming available tour operators the world over look for more ways to quell the concerns of the recent disaster by offering new, unique and enhanced product offerings. Stay with a local family, learn the teachings of Zen Buddhism at a mountaintop temple, take a stroll along the Kodo Pilgrimage trail, or simply walk and explore the soul of a large & bustling city. Look out for new tours and activities in 2012 to the land of the rising sun.