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Japan is the country where you can enjoy with armony. It is the fusion between Occident & Orient , the old & the new. There we can find cosmopolitan cities and old monuments, pictures, buildings, etc. You can also visit the japanese onsen, hot springswith vulcanic origin where the water flows, it makes possible enjoy with a wonderful scenary where it is have place. In the onsen you can forget the stress, take care of your body and relax your mind in a unusal and perfect almosphere.
Thanks to all of this, coming to Japan will be an unforgettable experience.

Introduction

Japan is the country where the past meets the future. Japanese culture stretches back millennia, yet has also adopted (and created) the latest modern fashions and trends.

Japan is a study in contrasts and contradictions. Many Japanese corporations dominate their industries, yet if you read the financial news it seems like Japan is practically bankrupt. Cities in Japan are as modern and high tech as anywhere else, but tumbledown wooden shacks can still be spotted next to glass fronted designer condominiums. On an average subway ride, you will see childishly cute character toys and violent pornography- sometimes enjoyed by the same passenger! Japan has beautiful temples and gardens which are often surrounded by garish signs and ugly buildings. In the middle of a modern skyscraper you might discover a sliding wooden door which leads to a traditional chamber with tatami mats, calligraphy, and tea ceremony. These juxtapositions mean you may often be surprised and rarely bored by your travels in Japan.

Location

Region

Japan consists of four main islands and many smaller islands, notably Okinawa. Honshu, by far the largest and most populated island, is typically divided into five (or more) regions. The other islands are not divided into sub-regions in this section, so they will constitute one region each. Thus, in total, the regions most commonly used are:

-1- Hokkaido - the snowy northern frontier of Japan.

-2- Tohoku - northeastern Honshu, for seafood, skiing and hot springs.

-3- Kanto - coastal plain including the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama.

-4- Chubu - mountainous middle region dominated by the Japan Alps and Japan's fourth-largest city Nagoya.

-5- Kansai - ancient capital of culture and commerce, including the cities of Osaka, Kyoto, Nara and Kobe.

-6- Chugoku - westernmost Honshu, a rural region best known for the cities of Hiroshima and Shimonoseki.

-7- Shikoku - the smallest of the Big 4, a destination for Buddhist pilgrims.

-8- Kyushu - birthplace of Japanese civilization; largest cities Fukuoka and Kitakyushu.

-9- Okinawa - semi-tropical southern island chain reaching out toward Taiwan.

History

While geography is not destiny, the fact that Japan is located on islands on the outermost edge of Asia has had a profound influence on its history. Just close enough to mainstream Asia, yet far enough to keep itself separate, much of Japanese history has been the alternation of periods of closure and openness. Until recently, Japan has been able to turn on or off its connection to the rest of the world, internalizing foreign cultural influences in fits and starts. It is comparable with the relationship between Britain and the rest of Europe, but with a much wider channel.

Recorded Japanese history begins in the 5th century, although archeaological evidence of settlement stretches back 500,000 years and the mythical Emperor Jimmu is said to have founded the current Imperial line in the 7th century BC. The first strong Japanese state was centered in Nara (8th c.), moving later to Kyoto and Kamakura until Japan descended into the anarchy of the Warring States period in the 15th century. Tokugawa Ieyasu finally reunified the country in 1600 and founded the Tokugawa shogunate, a feudal state ruled from Edo, or modern-day Tokyo. A strict caste system was imposed, with the Shogun and his samurai warriors at the top of the heap and no social mobility permitted.

Tokugawa rule kept the country stable but stagnant, with an enforced policy of total isolation enforced, while the world around them rushed ahead. U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry's Black Ships arrived in Yokohama in 1854, forcing the country to open up to trade with the west. The resulting shock led to the collapse of the shogunate in the Meiji Restoration of 1867. Japan launched itself headlong into a drive to industrialize and modernize, which soon turned into a drive to expand and colonize its neighbors, culminating in the disastrous Second World War that saw 1.86 million Japanese and well over 10 million Chinese and other Asians die in battle, bombings, starvation and massacres. Forced to surrender in 1945 after the nuclear attacks of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan was for the first time in its history occupied by the victorious Allies. The Emperor kept his throne but was turned into a constitutional monarch. Thus converted to pacifism and democracy, with the U.S. taking care of defense, Japan now directed its prodigious energies into peaceful technology and proceeded to conquer the world's marketplaces with an endless stream of cars and consumer electronics, rising from the ashes to attain the second-largest gross national product in the world.

People

As an island nation shut off from the rest of the world for a long time, Japan is very homogeneous, with around 98% of the population ethnically Japanese. The largest minority are Koreans, around 1 million strong and many brought to Japan by force during World War II, who until very recently were not allowed to adopt Japanese citizenship — even in the third generation — unless they also gave up their Korean name. There are also sizable populations of Chinese and Filipinos. The indigenous Ainu, driven north over the centuries and now found only on Hokkaido, number around 50,000 (although the number varies greatly depending on the exact definition used).

The attitude to foreigners — commonly known as gaijin (outsider), or gaikokujin (foreigner--a more polite phrasing) — is also full of contradictions. Many road signs, station names and so on are written in Western characters as well as in Japanese ones, but at the same time you can turn around and suddenly everything is in Japanese and nobody will understand a word you say. Many Japanese are thrilled to have visitors to their country and they will be incredibly helpful to a foreigner looking lost and bewildered. However, many Japanese are uncomfortable dealing with foreigners and will be reluctant to communicate in any way with them. The mass media is full of stories about the "foreigner crime wave", which seems focused mostly on Chinese and other East Asian ethnicities. The Japanese government constantly trumpets the goal of "internationalization", but employer and landlord discrimination against foreigners is commonplace.

 

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