Temples, shrines, festivals, traditional arts and Japan’s cultural heritage.
You’ve booked a ryokan with hot-spring baths and now you’re standing in front of two curtains, one red and one blue, holding a basket and a thin cotton towel and trying to remember what happens next. The pamphlet on the bed didn’t quite cover it. The internet says contradictory things. Half the guides talk about … Read more
Japan has 26 UNESCO World Heritage Sites: 21 cultural and 5 natural. The full list, with year inscribed, a one-line take, and a visit-logic tier so you can decide which to plan around and which to skip.
Nagasaki rewards two nights more than Hiroshima does. Dejima, Glover Garden, the Atomic Bomb Museum, Hashima Island, Mt Inasa night view, and a bowl of champon in Chinatown.
Kyoto has more than 1,600 Buddhist temples and 400 Shinto shrines. Here are the twelve worth structuring a trip around: opening hours, admission, photography rules, and the order to visit in.
Walking-route-led guide to Gion: Hanamikoji, Shirakawa canal, Pontocho, Yasaka Shrine, Chion-in, the geiko spotting reality, the 2024 photography ban, where to eat, Gion Matsuri, and what it actually costs.
06:30 at the Kaminarimon, and the lantern looks bigger than it does in any photograph. There are three of us in the square: me, a woman in white sneakers reading the kanji on the gate’s left guardian, and a delivery rider on a flat-loaded bicycle who keeps glancing at his phone. Senbei is roasting somewhere … Read more
