Traveling in Japan and Learning About the Ainu People

One trip that I feel is worth the money if you are in Japan for any significant amount of time is a trip to Hokkaido. Hokkaido has wonderful hot springs, food, and natural wonders (yes, wonders!). The difficulty of a trip to Hokkaido is that everything is very spread out and it may be a [...]

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Sakura Cherry Blossoms at Night

I just read through a great article (in Japanese) that gives advice to people about how to take great pictures of the cherry blossoms at night. There is a lot of basic advice for using the white balance and experimenting with your cameras automatic settings, but the site also features some nice photos of cherry [...]

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Best Places to See Sakura Cherry Blossoms Around the Kobe Area

If you are lucky enough to be in the Kobe area for the cherry blossom season, there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of places you can go. Actually, I will be writing a lot about places outside of Kobe and toward the western side of the Kansai region here because some of the best places to [...]

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Added a News Feed to Cheap Travel Japan Sidebar

Update: the feed I put in the sidebar isn’t working. The people below are good starts for what kind of news to follow. I have been watching the news about the nuclear plant troubles, and frankly I am concerned about all of Kanto and Tohoku. Just wanted to point out that I added a news [...]

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The Japan Earthquake and Travel to Japan

I just wanted to post a quick message up here for people who have been reading the site. The majority of damage after the latest earthquake in Japan is in the Sendai and Fukushima area north of Tokyo. However, the aftershocks are continuing. I don’t want to give too much advice until we feel the [...]

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10 Things Not to Do in a Japanese Bath (Sento) or Hot Spring (Onsen)

This is coming from a lot of experience getting a lot of strange looks during many years living and faux pas-ing in Japan. 1. Don’t Think About Soup I’ve brought non-Japanese friends to a very nice Sento, or public bathhouse, and heard the inevitable reference to “sitting in an old guy soup”. “The only thing [...]

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