What meets the eye when first arriving in Japan is a jumble of unattractive low rise office and apartment buildings, electricity poles and wires, neon signs and box shaped houses stretching to usually a mountainous horizon in an overwhelmingly grey colour. It isn’t a pretty sight. Yet, in one of the paradoxes that is modern day Japan, among and beyond can be found scenes of exquisite oriental beauty: tiny garden settings, ornate temples and their ancient grounds, old wooden farmhouses flanked by neatly tended rice paddies, impenetrable forests and mist-enshrouded distant mountain ranges. … [Read more...]