Korean Schoolchildren Discover Japan

Schoolgirls from Pusan visit Japan's nearest island to Korea to take part in a festival celebrating a friendship mission in 1607. As relations between the two countries grow warmer each year, more and more Korean students come to Japan on school trips. Newly relaxed Japanese visa requirements are encouraging both this trend and tourism in general.

Anything, Anywhere Home Deliveries

Japanese express home delivery services are perhaps the world's most advanced. Building on a long tradition of packaging and transportation skills, delivery companies complete to carry almost any kind of package to any destination, safely and inexpensively, and usually overnight. These highly convenient delivery companies now serve many other countries too.

Kyoto Gozen Fire Festival

August 13 to 16 is the O-bon festival, when Japanese families pay their respects to departed relatives. The festival starts with paper lanterns and candles to summon the dead souls, and in Kyoto it ends with the famous Gozen Fire Festival. Giant bonfires in the shape of religious characters light the mountainsides above the city to bid farewell to the departing spirits.

World Above the Clouds - The Japan Alps

Word of the Japan Alps first spread to the world's mountaineers a century ago through the writing of an English missionary, Walter Weston. These three ranges with their many 3,000 meter peaks are now widely famous for the varied beauty of their alpine lakes, forests, flowers and wildlife. With everything from gentle hikes to world class climbs, they are within easy reach of Tokyo.