easily could spend weeks slowly exploring the chain’s various islands, but most visitors tend to focus on Ishigaki-jima, the second largest island in the group. At picturesque Kabira Bay on its northern shore, dense vegetation and turquoise waters sandwich thin strips of virgin white sand to create hypnotically beautiful views. The island’s coastline also offers up numerous opportunities for snorkeling, diving and other water sports. From Ishigaki, boats run to Taketomi-jima, a great day-trip option just four kilometers southwest of Ishigaki, where visitors can soak up traditional Okinawan culture like nowhere else in the Ryukyus (Okinawan islands). Thanks to strict building regulations, the villages here are still defined by sandy roads, traditional red-roofed housing and stone walls; modern trappings keep a very low profile. On its southern end, Taketomi also has some of the best beaches in the Yaeyamas.
If time isn’t a concern, think about exploring farther afield. Boats run to the largest of the Yaeyamas, Iriomote-jima (30 kilometers; 18 miles) from Ishigaki, which is covered almost entirely in dense jungle and mangroves that provide the natural habitat for an incredible diversity of wildlife, including the critically endangered Iriomote Cat and a local variety of highly venomous pit viper. Not many foreign tourists make it out this far, but those who do take with them indelible subtropical memories.
Getting There Regular flights operate from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport to Ishigaki, taking 3 hours 25 minutes, and also from Naha, taking 30 minutes. Boat services run from Ishigaki to and between the other islands in the chain. Contact Okinawa Convention & Visitors Bureau: ocvb.or.jp/en
CHAPTER 2
EXPLORING JAPAN
From the thriving modern metropolis of Tokyo and the cultural heartland of Kyoto to the wilds of Hokkaido and Okinawa’s pristine beaches, Japan has something spectacular to offer every traveler. This chapter will help you get the best out of Japan no matter how brief your stay, with suggestions for three great days in Tokyo, four more wonderful days exploring Kyoto and Nara, and plenty of other accessible day trips and memorable journeys. Get out there and experience as much of it as you can!
A Day in Western Tokyo
A Day in Central Tokyo
Day Trips from Tokyo
A Day in Kamakura
A Day in Yokohama
Hakone and Mount Fuji
A Day in Nikko
Exploring Kanazawa and the Japan Alps
A Day in Kanazawa
The Kaga Hot Springs
A Visit to Shirakawa-go
Exploring Kyoto in Four Days
A Day in Central Kyoto
A Day in Eastern Kyoto
A Day in Western Kyoto
Southern Kyoto and Nara
Exploring Osaka and Kansai
A Day in Osaka
A Day in Kobe
Other Excursions in Kansai
Exploring Western Japan
Western Honshu Island
The Best of Shikoku Island
The Best of Kyushu Island
Exploring Hokkaido
A Day in Sapporo
Touring Hokkaido
Exploring Okinawa
A Day around Naha
Exploring Okinawa-honto
Other Okinawan Islands
EXPLORING
TOKYO IN THREE DAYS
Discover the energetic metropolis’s many faces
Tokyo, the “Eastern Capital,” is relatively young by Japanese standards. When shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu chose the then fishing village of Edo as the site for his new base of power in 1603 and began construction of Edo Castle, imperial Kyoto had already been thriving for almost a thousand years. It wasn’t until the Meiji Restoration of 1868 that the then flourishing Edo changed its name to Tokyo and became the country’s official capital. Despite being almost totally destroyed twice since then (by the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and the bombing of World War II), Tokyo has blossomed into one of the world’s foremost metropolises–an enthralling and at times dizzying blend of modern and unerringly traditional that is home to 35 million people living in a vast urban sprawl stretching almost unbroken from its center into the neighboring prefectures of Kanagawa, Chiba, Yamanashi and Saitama.
Shopping in Akihabara
A Day in Northern Tokyo
Old neighborhoods and the latest gadgets
Tokyo’s northeast is a fitting place to start exploring the city, as it is here in the neighborhoods of Ueno and Asakusa, and to a slightly lesser extent the electronics and otaku (geek) district of Akihabara, that Tokyo reveals more of its soul than anywhere else.
Akihabara: Electronics and Otaku
Electronics took off in Akihabara, two stations northeast of Tokyo Station, with the black market trading of radios and radio components immediately after World War II, and they continue to thrive in the area with a combination of megastores and hundreds of small-scale specialists. Akihabara’s main street, Chuo-dori, and the side streets leading off of it teem with stores, from places like Thanko (thanko.jp), which specializes in quirky electronics such as odd-shaped USB devices and binoculars with built-in video recorders, to Tsukumo Robot Kingdom (robot.tsukumo.co.jp), where you can pick up all sorts of robots and robot parts. Then there are the megastores like Laox, Ishimaru
