Makiko Itoh, 日本人だよ
Votes by Garrick Saito, Erica Friedman, Sahana Radhakrishna, and 110 more.
Esoteric answer:
The best kept secret about Japan may be that it's not what you think it is. Don't fall into the trap of defining it by clichés, the way much of the overseas media does. If you think it is the land of high-tech and robots and automation everywhere, it is and it isn't. If on the other hand you think it's a mysterious land with the 'spirit of the samurai' and secret ninjas and such, it isn't and it is. It is homogenous and it isn't. It is both forward thinking and in some ways, very backwards. Some people assume from seeing some manga or anime that Japanese people are incredibly perverted, but most people are actually very prudish and conservative by Western standards. It is a nation filled with people who claim to not be religious, yet every town and village and road is dotted with small shrines with fresh flowers, and little stone deities dressed in handknitted caps and bibs. While it is part of Asia and parts of its culture were influenced by China and Korea, it is also distinct and unique. It's a country with a long and complicated history, and it's also a modern, messy democracy.
Rather than trying to pigeonhole it, try to take it for what it is.
Conventional touristic answer:
There are way too many not so well known destinations to even just list in a Quora answer, so I'll just describe one.
The Kiso-ji or Kiso Way was an important trade route and thoroughfare in the feudal period. It was dotted with small shukuba-machi, or accomodation towns, which catered to the frequent travelers who went back and forth between Edo and their home territories. Naraijuku is a shukuba-machi that has been carefully preserved so that it looks much the way it did 2-300 years ago. This is about as close as you can get to walking along a real Edo period street. Imagine the single street in Naraijuku multiplied hundreds of times over, and that is essentially what Tokyo used to look like before a huge earthquake, frequent fires and wartime fire bombings flattened it.
Naraijuku is now part of the city of Shiojiri in Nagano prefecture. You can reach it from Tokyo via Matsumoto. It takes about 3 hours one way. Since it's at a high altitude it's relatively cool even in the summer.
(Although from talking to the lady who runs the Usagi-ya restaurant across from the train station, plenty of foreign tourists have discovered it already so it's not really a secret I guess. It's definitely off the usual Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka-Hiroshi
The best kept secret about Japan may be that it's not what you think it is. Don't fall into the trap of defining it by clichés, the way much of the overseas media does. If you think it is the land of high-tech and robots and automation everywhere, it is and it isn't. If on the other hand you think it's a mysterious land with the 'spirit of the samurai' and secret ninjas and such, it isn't and it is. It is homogenous and it isn't. It is both forward thinking and in some ways, very backwards. Some people assume from seeing some manga or anime that Japanese people are incredibly perverted, but most people are actually very prudish and conservative by Western standards. It is a nation filled with people who claim to not be religious, yet every town and village and road is dotted with small shrines with fresh flowers, and little stone deities dressed in handknitted caps and bibs. While it is part of Asia and parts of its culture were influenced by China and Korea, it is also distinct and unique. It's a country with a long and complicated history, and it's also a modern, messy democracy.
Rather than trying to pigeonhole it, try to take it for what it is.
Conventional touristic answer:
There are way too many not so well known destinations to even just list in a Quora answer, so I'll just describe one.
The Kiso-ji or Kiso Way was an important trade route and thoroughfare in the feudal period. It was dotted with small shukuba-machi, or accomodation towns, which catered to the frequent travelers who went back and forth between Edo and their home territories. Naraijuku is a shukuba-machi that has been carefully preserved so that it looks much the way it did 2-300 years ago. This is about as close as you can get to walking along a real Edo period street. Imagine the single street in Naraijuku multiplied hundreds of times over, and that is essentially what Tokyo used to look like before a huge earthquake, frequent fires and wartime fire bombings flattened it.
Naraijuku is now part of the city of Shiojiri in Nagano prefecture. You can reach it from Tokyo via Matsumoto. It takes about 3 hours one way. Since it's at a high altitude it's relatively cool even in the summer.
(Although from talking to the lady who runs the Usagi-ya restaurant across from the train station, plenty of foreign tourists have discovered it already so it's not really a secret I guess. It's definitely off the usual Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka-Hiroshi
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