Japan

Only on a visit to Japan would you arrive on a plane adorned with oversize cartoon characters, and within hours be in an otherworldly Buddhist temple on the top of a snow-covered mountain. Japan is as contradictory as it is unique: if only because of a lack of space to separate them, striking symbols of modern life and relics of ancient generations sit closer than in most countries. At a thousand year-old temple a bright green public telephone has been built into a stone statue; on the top floor of a hi-tech department store, 20-year old girls try on kimono and wooden clogs for their formal coming-of-age ceremonies.

Tokyo and the industrial cities in the North of Japan are colossal stretches of apartment blocks, factories and highways. Population density is among the highest in the world and places like Yokohama, Nagoya and Osaka are spirited hives of urban activity. The rural parts of South-west Japan, though, could not be further from this. Ancient rice fields occupy vast areas of land, and even 'cities' are dated by crumbly wooden fish shops and treacherous narrow roads.

Likewise, the chilly North contrasts starkly with the semi-tropical South, and the seasons, for which Japan is well-known, are as distinct as picture postcards would have us believe. The oppressiveness of summer is enough to melt candles and burn pavements, whilst winter in most of the country is bitter enough to banish all memories of heat. Added to this roller-coaster calendar can be viscous typhoons, devastating earthquakes and a month of persistent sultry rain in June.

The bursting of the financial bubble in Japan is often referred to but rarely visible: Japan has one of the most advanced standards of living in the world and despite the persistence of entrenched economic problems armies of people in the service industry evince over-employment. The political climate, too, is a complex one: though electoral turnouts are consistently high, the majority of people are disinterested and policy change is agonizingly slow. Japan, nonetheless, continues to be a source of fascination to much of the world.

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