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| Above, a view of Fukuoka from Fukuoka Tower. Ian Fleming visited the city in 1962. Photo by Armand Vaquer. |
Japan is more often associated with Godzilla, anime and other genres of pop culture, but James Bond and his creator, Ian Fleming, also visited the Land of the Rising Sun.
Now, visitors can follow in their footsteps.
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| Above, my copy of You Only Live Twice. |
The Japan Times reported:
Tasked to trace the route across Japan that Ian Fleming, the author of James Bond, took in 1962 — and which Bond himself largely follows in Fleming’s penultimate 007 novel “You Only Live Twice” (1964) — it was suggested I could experience the same route but with modern sensibilities.
In truth, if you wish to follow the two-week trip Fleming took across Japan — beginning in Tokyo and winding your way down to Kyushu — you can assuredly do so, either in one go or knocked off in discrete sections. You can visit nearly all of the places that Fleming went to and see the eternal sights that he did: the Mikimoto pearl fisheries and the Grand Shrines of Ise on the Kii Peninsula; the Nijo Jinya and Shimabara brothel district in Kyoto; and take a ferry ride from the city of Kobe along the islands of the Seto Inland Sea to the “hells” of Beppu, to finally arrive at the magnificent caldera of Mount Aso in Kyushu before taking in Fukuoka on a bullet train back to Tokyo.
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| Above, Sean Connery and his co-stars of You Only Live Twice at the Pinewood Studios set. Thanks to G-FEST's Stan Hyde for finding this photo. |
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