And Japanese manga and anime have legions of fans around the globe, in the process spawning a billion-dollar business.
The E5 Series is one of the newer bullet trains, debuting in 2011 and with a maximum speed of 320 km/h (200 mph).
A Kawasaki prototype. Japan’s automotive companies frequently lead the way.
Nagoya City Science Museum. As well as the futuristic design, inside it’s full of hands-on activities designed to inspire the next generation of scientists.
A prototype on display at Toyota’s main production complex near Nagoya. A visit here can also include a tour of the high-tech, mostly automated production lines.
The Tokyo Big Sight convention center in Tokyo’s Odaiba district.
It might look like something from Thunderbirds, but this is one of the boats that transports people up and down the Sumida River, running from Asakusa to Hamarikyu Gardens and Odaiba.
Toyota’s companion robot Kirobo Mini, who has traveled to the International Space Station.
One of Toyota’s robots. Now it just plays the violin for school kids, but one day developers hope robots will be able to function as care-givers, concierges and in many other capacities.
Naoshima is home to dozens of art installations, such as the Frog and Cat by Karel Appel pictured here, as well as several museums.
The Shinjuku skyline.
A “game center” (amusement arcade). In Tokyo and elsewhere, they come in all shapes and sizes, from virtual reality-heavy centers like Joypolis to old-school, retro-only arcades where you can turn back the clock with a bit of Street Fighter.
Japan’s otaku, which could roughly translate as geek (although that doesn’t quite capture all the nuances), fuel massive anime, manga and related industries. From cosplay outfits to figurines, video games to comics, visit Akihabara in Tokyo and you can take in all of Japan’s otaku color and energy.
Depending on one’s point of view, the Robot Restaurant in Shinjuku’s glitzy, neon-heavy multimedia cabaret could be the ultimate in tacky or wonderful kitsch.
WASHOKU: JAPANESE CUISINE
A Foodie’s Paradise
Food. Be it sushi, ramen or any of the hundreds of other dishes found around Japan, Japanese cuisine has to be one of the country’s greatest claims to fame. In a nation full of foodies, food is a central fixture of celebrations and festivals, food-related shows dominate prime time TV, cookbooks and cooking magazines fill entire aisles in bookstores, and wherever you go it rarely feels you are that far from somewhere to grab a bite to eat. Tokyo alone is home to somewhere near 100,000 licensed eating establishments that range from almost three hundred wallet-busting Michelin-starred restaurants to simple, standing-only noodle joints that give change from ¥500. Leave aside the vast selection of international flavors, the varieties of just Japanese cuisine are mind blowing, but despite that variety there are certain threads that bind everything together.
Afocus on the use of seasonal produce is shared by many types of Japanese cuisine, from the in-season vegetables in Buddhist shojin ryori cuisine to the seafood selected by sushi restaurants. So is specialization: restaurants dedicated only to soba noodles, tofu dishes, pork cutlets, tempura, and many other single foods are extremely common. Look at Tokyo and you’ll see that certain areas specialize, too. Okubo, a part of Shinjuku, is home to a concentration of Korean restaurants. Ryogoku is known for chanko nabe, the hot pot of meat, vegetables and seafood used by sumo wrestlers to bulk up. The Tsukishima area is the birthplace of monjayaki, a happy-tasting but not especially appetizing-looking dish that begins as a runny batter containing chopped vegetables, meat or seafood and then after a while on a hotplate becomes a sticky mess like fried cheese.
And this kind of specializing stretches out on a national scale, too. Almost every region, city and even small town you visit will have at least one local dish it is proud of. Moving away from Tokyo, Yokohama has its Chinatown restaurants. Up north in Hokkaido, the harsh, cold climate has given Sapporo local specialties that include warming soup curry (like a mulligatawny), a hearty miso-based version of ramen, and a type of mutton barbecue somewhat oddly named after Genghis Khan. At the opposite end of the archipelago, balmy Okinawa has a version of soba noodles in broth that are topped with melt-in-the-mouth pork (soki soba), a wonderful stir-fry of bitter gourd, spam, tofu and egg called goya champuru, and oddities that include vinegared pig’s ears (mimiga) and stewed pig’s trotters (tonsoku). And where to start with Kyoto? You can find restaurants serving refined kaiseki cuisine all over the country, but the multi-course collection of artistically presented seasonal delicacies is never better than in Kyoto.
In fact, play a word association game with a Japanese friend, and you’ll likely get a lot of foodie responses. Osaka? Okonomiyaki (a kind of savory pancake) and takoyaki (battered chunks of octopus). Niigata? The koshihikari rice variety. Kyushu? Hakata ramen. Shikoku? Udon noodles and oranges. The list could go on and on, but the takeaway is simple: very little is more important than food in Japan.
Street food stalls selling takoyaki—battered chunks of octopus that get lathered in a gooey soy-based sauce and mayo, and then topped with fish flakes.
Kaiseki ryori, the ultimate in Japanese cuisine. You can drop several hundred dollars per person at the best kaiseki restaurants, but good versions can be found much cheaper as part of a stay in a traditional Japanese ryokan.
Pickles on display at Kyoto’s Nishiki Market, a must-stop on any foodie’s trip to Kyoto.
Tofu comes in many different textures and is served in a variety of ways. Try it as part of a shojin ryori vegetarian meal and you’ll very possibly shed any notion of it being the dull health food it’s too often considered in the West.
Okonomiyaki, the savory pancake-like dish that’s found all over but is a specialty in Osaka and Hiroshima. A mix of diced cabbage, batter, eggs and anything else you might want to add (pork and kimchi