www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/flashback/0009/ National Geographic has been running a flashback series highlighting its rich photographic history. Here's the September 2000 peek-to-the-past: a Hadaka Matsui feat at Saidaiji Temple in Okayama just after World War II. The photographer's flash provided the only illumination during this Lunar New Year observance in which unclothed young men jammed into a pitch-black room fight to come up with camphor-scented batons.
www.us-japan.org/EdoMatsu/
Now take a trip further into the past, to 18th Century Edo, back when present-day Tokyo was the busiest city in the world. Ride along the Tokaido,then as now a main thoroughfare, and experience a government that tolerated travel in the name of commerce but regulated it to ensure "troublemakers" don't try to overthrow the Shogun. You're not gonna find a livelier history lesson anywhere on the Net.
www.manotsuru.com/english/top.htm
This is the rather simple home page of the Obata Sake Brewery, which has been hand-brewing sake on Sado Island since 1885. Less than two months ago,its Daiginjo took the gold medal in the All Japan Sake Contest.