Insight Guides: Japan
Language: English
Pages: 416
ISBN: 1780052073
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
One of the world's most captivating countries, Japan is a land of many fascinating contrasts, taking in some of the world's most futuristic cities alongside stunning natural landscapes and a wonderfully preserved ancient culture. Be inspired to visit by the fully-updated new edition of Insight Guide Japan, a comprehensive full-colour guide to this unique country.
Inside Insight Guide Japan:
- A fully-overhauled edition by our knowledgeable authors.
- Stunning, specially-commissioned photography that brings this extraordinary country and its people to life
- Highlights of the country's top attractions, including the iconic Mount Fuji, Kyoto's 15th-century Ginkaku-ji Temple and Gardens, and Tokyo's coolest districts.
- Descriptive region-by-region accounts cover the whole country from Hokkaido and Honshu to Shikoku and Kyushu in detail, and suggest excursions to the smaller surrounding islands.
- Detailed, high-quality maps throughout will help you get around and travel tips give you all the essential information for planning a memorable trip, including our independent selection of the best places to eat.
About Insight Guides: Insight Guides has over 40 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides. We produce around 400 full-color print guide books and maps as well as picture-packed eBooks to meet different travelers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture together create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure.
'Insight Guides has spawned many imitators but is still the best of its type.' - Wanderlust Magazine
5.30–7am until 5–7pm, depending on the season) contains one of the finest traditional gardens in Japan, with 54 hectares (133 acres) of ponds, hills, pine forests and a botanical garden. One of the garden’s best rewards is a cup of tea at the beautiful Kikugetsutei teahouse. The Kagawa Museum (Tue–Sun 9am–5pm), near the entrance to the park, displays comprehensive collections of crafts from Shikoku and throughout Japan. However, the region’s most popular craft are the distinctive sanuki-udon
at the behest of his own lord. Ieyasu brought with him to Edo a ready-made population of considerable size. Huge numbers of peasants, merchants and ronin (master-less samurai) poured into the new capital of the shogun to labour in the construction of the castle, mansions, warehouses and other infrastructure required to run the giant bureaucracy. The courses of rivers were changed, canals were dug and Hibiya Inlet, which brought Tokyo Bay lapping at the base of the castle hill, was filled in.
ceremonies. Over half the population visit shrines over New Year to pray for the coming year, most often for success in examinations, luck in love and recovery from illness. Shinto A basic understanding of the Japanese religious sensibility must begin with Shinto, which influences virtually every aspect of Japanese culture and society. It is hard to give any simple definition of Shinto (literally, way of the gods, or kami), since it is not a systematised set of beliefs. There is no dogmatic
popular James Bondian character known as Lupin the Third. Since then, his films as director have included such fanciful, haunting and often humorous fantasy efforts as Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Laputa – The Castle in the Sky, Porco Rosso, My Neighbour Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service and the gigantic box-office hit Mononoke Hime, or Princess Mononoke. Shinto strongly informs Princess Mononoke – a complex story that is essentially about the inevitable clash between humans and the deities
tempura-style). Priced in between are tempura soba, kitsune (with fried tofu), tanuki (with tempura drippings), tsukimi (with raw egg), wakame (with kelp) and countless others. Sushi and sashimi Taste and visual pleasure converge in sushi and sashimi, both prepared with uncooked seafood. A good sushi shop, or sushi-ya, can be both expensive and confounding if one doesn’t know what to ask for. Try, instead, a kaiten sushi-ya, where small dishes of sushi pass by on a conveyor belt along the