I often meet people who are taking off a few months to travel through Asia. These people spend months traveling through China, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, etc., but they invariably skip Japan.
"Why not Japan?" I ask them. Most people say it's because it is too expensive. Japan is expensive to fly into, expensive to get around in, and who recognizes the food anyway? Every year, thousands and thousands of travelers skip this amazing country of samurai castles, ancient Buddhist temples and unique arts. But Japan is even more than that.
Travelers who do visit Japan come back with not only fantastic stories of what they saw, but equally fantastic stories of how kind and polite the people are. It's true that Japanese people go out of their way to take care of foreigners. But not just foreigners. The daily respect shown among themselves is admirable. What makes Japan is the people. And there are no people quite like the Japanese.
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