Ten Reasons To Visit Japan This Summer

Above, the O-Torii Gate at Itsukushima on Miyajima Island near Hiroshima. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

eTurboNews has an interesting article on "10 Reasons To Visit Japan This Summer." The source for the article is the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO).

The article begins with:

Most of Japan is back to normal following the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami on 11 March. Many parts of Japan, including popular holiday destinations such as Hokkaido, Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Hiroshima, Mt. Fuji, Nagasaki and Okinawa, incurred no disruption to infrastructure and everything in these areas has continuously operated as normal.

Tokyo is back to normal with trains once again running like clockwork, water safe to drink and the beer and yogurt shortages now over (yes, there were temporary shortages due to packaging factories having been in the earthquake-hit region!).

The FCO has said it is safe to travel to Tokyo and beyond in Japan since 5th April, yet UK visitors to Japan have dropped by around 50%. With the full reopening of the Tohoku bullet train line on 29 April, the situation for visitors is virtually back to normal in all of Japan, including most of the Tohoku Region (the area in northeast Japan where the earthquake and tsunami occurred).

The ten reasons are excellent ones (I'm not posting them here, so you'll have to read the article).

To view the article, go here.