How are you guys doing? Have you been enjoying summer? Where did you go for vacation? Whoever you went, next destination is fixed. Of course, Japan. You haven’t thought about it, have you? No worries, I will teach you here.
(The picture was taken by Satoru Fukuda, you can find his post on Facebook, Tokyo camera club, https://www.facebook.com/camera.jpn )
Let’s start statistics first. Do you know how many foreigners are coming to Japan each year? 10,364,000 (=10 million) people (2013)!! Do you think that small or not? This is surprisingly small compare with top level tourism countries. Top three is French 83 million, the U.S. 67 million, and then China 58 million in 2012 according to World tour ranking. Also the number of tourist in many other Asian countries can beat that of Japan. I thought I need to start writing about Japan to increase the number of foreign tourists.
Good news is that the foreigner tourists in Japan have been increasing, except of the year of the Lehman shock and the great earth quake, we are also expecting 20 million people to come to Japan each year by 2020 when we hold Tokyo Olympic we have just 6 years. I want people to choose Japan for next trip. And for Japanese, I want to be ready and welcome for tourists. I want tourists to come before Olympic, during Olympic, and after Olympic.
The purposes of tourist are mainly eating Japanese food (1st) and shopping (2nd). I am thinking of writing about foods, places to visit, and things to do in Japan.
The foods: The reason why tourists chose to come to Japan is food. I will try to introduce foods you might want to try when you are in Japan. Sure, you can eat Sushi. To find good Sushi restaurant you might ask your Japanese friends because sometime good Sushi restaurant is small and hard to find. To find good and reasonable restaurant you have choices. Do you know MICHELIN guide? The number of the 3 star restaurants is 1st Tokyo, 2nd Paris and 3rd Osaka. I hope you will have good food in Japan and I want to help you.
The places: The biggest city in Japan is Tokyo and most popular city for tourists may be Kyoto. So, you can come to Tokyo or Kyoto for the first time, but if you liked it, you can come to place where is small but worth spending. I would like to good place where other visitors don’t know, I am asking my Japanese friends.
The things to do: I will try to introduce the place you should to go. Fortunately, we have also a lot of nature. And you can go theme park, such as Tokyo Disney Land, the Universal Studio Japan and so on. These are popular for Asian people. And you want to go to shrines or temples we have a lot, especially in Kyoto and Nara.
One of reason why I am writing this English is because there are too few blogs written in foreign language, I would love you to write more about your experiences in Japan with your native language and post on your Facebook, blog, or whatever SNS you use. If your stay in Japan were satisfactory, please come to Japan again with your friends and family. Thank you very much.