My wife and I have been to Japan 4 times now, so I know of what I speak.
A trip to Japan is really multiple trips in one very, very clean package. By visiting Tokyo you can jump ahead at least 10 years in the future (that's how long it will take the rest of world to get the stuff you'll see in Akihabara), and then you can hop on the shinkansen and go back in time a couple of centuries when you visit Kyoto.
Speaking of shinkansen (or bullet trains) there is a great deal that tourists (at least American tourists...not sure of other countries) can take advantage of: the JR pass. "JR" stands for "Japan Rail", and basically, you can ride any train they run as much as you want for the time period purchased.
To illustrate: a one-way ticket on the bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka might run $350-400 or so (about the same as an airline ticket.) But an American tourist can buy the unlimited JR pass for 2 weeks that runs about $700. So a single trip to Osaka and back already covers your pass. But you will use it a lot more than that! On one trip we rode from Tokyo to Osaka and back; Kyoto to Kobe and back; Kyoto to Tokyo; Tokyo to Disneyland and back; plus all of the local trains we took in those cities. We definitely got our money's worth.
You can see the amazing wilderness of Hokkaido in the north and then see the tropical beaches of Okinawa in the far south. You can visit the wild nightlife of Ginza and the down-to-earth nightlife of Dotonbori.
And the Japanese love foreigners in general and Americans in particular. It is a clean, safe, well-mannered, fabulous place to spend a few weeks and make memories that will last a lifetime.
Jeffrey Dale Starr is a world traveler, oil painter, and owner of mobile software company Purple Falcon.
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