Visit Japan and it feels affluent and successful. Roads look like they were tarmacked and painted the night before, and everyone seems to be driving a new (or perhaps just very clean) car. Levels of public safety and trust remain high.
Cities such as Tokyo are abuzz with high-end shops and restaurants. And for all that it’s a tourist-board cliché, Japanese culture really does run the gamut from the timelessness of temples, shrines and festivals through to cutting-edge fashion, architecture and visual media.
An ever-increasing number of tourists — rising to 36.9 million last year — find that all this is available at surprisingly low cost. Japan has had nothing like the high inflation of the UK and US, and the yen remains weak. Find the right restaurant and a sumptuous multi-course meal is yours for the price of a large McDonald’s back home.
