Prologue

Hello! Welcome to my weblog.

In October of 2006 I traveled through Japan for a month, all the way from Sapporo in the north to Nagasaki in the south. While I was there, I decided to write a little daily report of what I had seen and done each day. The original was written in Dutch (as I'm from the Netherlands), but after I returned home, I decided to translate it to English. This is the story you see here.

But, 'naze Nihon?' as many people asked me. Why Japan? That story begins in September of 2005, when one of my articles got accepted for publication at a conference. Nothing special, were it not that the conference was held in Kashiwa (a Tokyo suburb), in March 2006. Like everyone, I too already had a mental picture of Japan. It was actually slightly critical and skeptical. All that changed during the trip in March. After the conference, I went for a week of sightseeing in Tokyo and Kyoto. One week was far too short, so I decided to come back later that year.

When to go? Spring and autumn are the best seasons to visit Japan, so around October. For how long? Why not one month? Where to go? Let's go everywhere! It sounds like a crazy idea, but crazy ideas are often most fun. So I grabbed my Lonely Planet guide book, and started planning. And the result is shown in the little map below:

Have fun reading. You can click on photos to see a larger version. Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail me, "jnunnink (at) science (dot) uva (dot) nl". I am sure there are little errors here and there, and I am always curious for your opinion.