The East Capital

It’s been almost 5 years since the first and only only time I’ve been to Japan. It was October 2012 when we found great tickets on an odd open-jaw combination. London-Rome–Moscow-Tokyo, and the return Tokyo-Moscow-London. Fun times back then, but a great joy in the overall trip. It was 8 of us, the very first time I was travelling with a greater number of friends, but we survived and returned with the best experience possibly in our lives back in the days; and still, 5 years after and having visited another 87 countries so far in the world, Japan ranks among the best top 5 in the list, no hesitation. In this occasion, 4 of us travelling, my family. My brother repeating with me, and my parents. We had spoken for a long now about when to go to Japan together, switched destinations all over many times; been to France, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, China, South Korea… and finally Japan, including a stop-over in Doha to enjoy an entire day there and break the long journey; for me a returning place but for my family the first time in the Middle East.

Let’s start from the first experience: landing in Japan is landing in another world. Don’t expect the technology difference with the rest of the world is that big anymore, as contrary, they seem to be more old dated and fashioned in many ways. But their superb mentality, cleanliness, education and politeness will shock anyone. Not to mention the attention to detail and the perfect functionality of everything, like their transit systems, the busiest in the world, where everything just work without failures, on time, to the precision.

Tokyo will be for majority of the tourists coming to Japan, their main port of entry in the country, and so, the first place they will get to see. It is without any doubt, one of the most impressive and fascinating cities in the world, but not the place where to see the traditional and old Japan. For that, you will need to include in your tour some of the historical cities such as Nikko, Nagoya, Kyoto, Nara, Horyu-Ji, Himeji-Jo, Osaka and Hiroshima to name a few. All of these were in my plan, together with a visit to nearby Yokohama which you can treat as a “district” of massive Tokyo, although it is an entire different city.

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