Category: Uncategorized
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Travel Guide: A Day in Western Tokyo
Tokyo is enormous, and Western Tokyo is where it really earns that reputation. Shibuya, Shinjuku, Harajuku — these are the neighbourhoods that show up in every Tokyo mood board, every travel video, every “you have to go to Japan” conversation. But here’s the thing nobody really prepares you for: it…
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Osaka: North & South: The 3-2-1
Osaka splits into two distinct personalities along geographic lines. The north is where the city does business: serious department stores, polished architecture, and the Sky Building looming over Umeda. The south is the Osaka most people picture before they visit: the Glico running man sign, the neon-lit canal, the smell…
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Osaka Castle & Shopping: The 3-2-1
In stark contrast to Tokyo, Osaka has a laid-back, loud, and friendly reputation. It’s a stereotype that lives up to reality; the city wears its personality on its sleeve, and this day covers three sides of it: the feudal grandeur of the castle, the vertical ambition of the tallest skyscraper…
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Travel Guide: Onomichi Daytrip
Onomichi is the kind of Japanese city that rewards people who go looking for it. A small port city in Hiroshima Prefecture built into steep hillsides above the Onomichi Channel, with a dense network of narrow lanes, old temples, weathered wooden houses, and cats. It’s also the western gateway to…
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Travel Guide: Miyajima Island Daytrip
Miyajima — officially Itsukushima — is a small island about 30 minutes from Hiroshima by streetcar and ferry, and one of the most photographed places in Japan. The floating torii gate of Itsukushima Shrine, standing in the sea at high tide, has been one of Japan’s canonical images for centuries.
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Travel Guide: A Day in Kyoto’s West Side
The west side of Kyoto has three of the city’s most recognizable sights, and the good news is they’re genuinely different from each other. Arashiyama is nature and temples on the western edge of the city. Kinkakuji is one building that earns every photo taken of it. The Imperial Palace…
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Travel Guide: A Day in Kyoto’s East Side
Kyoto has around 1,600 temples and shrines, but it’s a mistake to do a circuit around even the most famous ones. They’ll start to blur together and get boring. Instead, a day in Eastern Kyoto balances two famous but very different temples with a neighborhood walk that traverses them. Best…
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Travel Guide: A Kamakura Daytrip
Kamakura sits about an hour south of Tokyo by train, making it an easy, rewarding daytrip from the city. It was Japan’s political capital in the 12th and 13th centuries and has a unique mix of historical and religious significance, including one of the most recognizable Buddhist statues in the…
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Travel Guide: A Day in Hiroshima
Hiroshima, rebuilt after the Second World War, carries the weight of its history in a way that’s impossible to ignore or fully prepare for. The Peace Memorial Park and Museum are extremely important sites, and if it’s your first visit to Hiroshima, they are must-sees. But Hiroshima is a real,…
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Japan Travel Guide: A Day in Central Tokyo
Tokyo is one of the largest and most complex cities on earth — 14 million people in the city proper, 37 million in the greater metro area. The single biggest mistake tourists make is zigzagging between areas on the same day, burning hours on trains. The MattFuji approach is to…
Matt Fuji 