Timeline: 21st March to 7th April 2005

Japan doesn't feature on many back-packers itineraries, which is convenient because Japan doesn't really cater for the backpacker. Prices are high, the cost of travel is even higher and the chance of finding budget accommodation is low. But with us both having friends teaching English in Japan, and being already so far east we took the opportunity to visit.

A two-day ferry journey from Shanghai delivered us across the East China Sea to Osaka.

From the grey, industrial port of Osaka we continued on to Kyoto, where recent history has been kind to its traditional past. The one time capital of Japan emerged largely unscathed from the Pacific War and as a result has retained much of its heritage and many of its old buildings.

The same cannot be said of Tokyo. It is both modern and massive. Although flattened by a earthquake in 1923 and flattened again twice more by the US bombing campaigns of 1944 and '45 it has, quite literally, risen from the ashes to become one of the world's most vibrant cities and heart of an economic superpower.

Tokyo is basically the amalgamation of several cities. It is the size of a small country and is impossible to explore fully but the comprehensive network of train lines, subways, ferry routes and expressways show exactly how public transport should be managed.

Trains run to the minute, every minute, and drivers are trained to stop within centimetres at each station.

During our time in Tokyo, I developed a strange bout of hayfever. Strange in that I have never suffered hayfever before and stranger still in that I, amongst the overwhelming buildings and skyscrapers, did not once see a single bit of greenery or vegetation other than what appeared on a plate.

Apparently hayfever is a common irritant in the city although no-one seemed to have a proper explanation as to why.

Another irritant: it is so expensive that our backpackers-shoestring budget was devoured. A newspaper story during the time we were there declared Tokyo to be only the third most expensive city in the world behind Oslo and Copenhagen. Having been to both, I can only surmise that in my short time travelling I've missed some catastrophic Scandinavian currency devaluation.

From Tokyo, we travelled a short distance to the prefecture of Yamanashi Ken and the town of Minami Alps, a small, quiet town with a panoramic view of Mount Fuji. This photo is taken from Minami Alps and shows the Kofu basin -- Kofu being the main town in the area.

Nature toyed with us as the date for the blooming of the famous cherry blossoms was delayed for a day, each day. Luckily they emerged on our final day, as did Mount Fuji from behind the clouds.

Japan is full of peculiarities, in particular the education system. It is intense and minutely controlled, even down to who can or cannot ride a bike to school. Children attend 6 days a week and there are extra-curricular classes before the regular school day, after the school day, on weekends and on holidays. These are not compulsory but neither is it accepted to miss them. This makes for a group mentality where individualism is discouraged. This may result in a highly productive workforce but it's countered by an equally high suicide rate.

Yet despite this near 100% attendance the children lack a basic grasp of English, hence the reason our friends and thousands of other English-speaking Westerners have found employment here. Despite having resources vastly greater than many of its neighbours Japan is currently rated 24th out of 25 Asian countries in ability to speak English.

Geography is another example where it has gone wrong. A recent survey discovered only a few children were able to point out Japan on a world map, fewer still to America and none could identify North Korea, Japan's biggest threat. Obviously "Scotland" threw them completely, the stereotypical reference points of whisky, bagpipes, golf and tartan returned blank looks but bizarrely "Nessie" had them "ahhing" and nodding in recognition.

What does stand out in the schools amongst the children is pride and collectivity. Shoes are swapped for slippers upon entering the building, the children take turns at serving the lunches and the entire school is cleaned and washed at the end of every day, by the children, including the toilets. Rather different from the west of Scotland where the current disposition is to burn the school down then stone the firefighters as they come to save it!

We observed this pride and collectivity first hand one day as we were kindly invited to a school where the children -- aged 15 and 16 -- were rehearsing a performance of Taiko drumming, Japanese native music. Although we only arrived towards the end, the class had been going on the whole day. It was the mid-term holidays.

This group mentality and intense work ethic continues on into the workplace. On our way to the airport we witnessed the morning rush hour, it was just after 5am and the carriages were standing room only. It peaks again at 9pm when the stations are awash with a sea of suits and briefcases. It was no surprise to learn the Japanese sleep less than any other people in Asia, barely averaging 6 hours a night.

Overtime is never paid and no-one will dare take their full entitlement of annual leave if they wish to progress up the corporate ladder -- the average Japanese office worker will use just three days holiday a year.

Yet for all this, the National Happiness Index declares the Japanese are significantly happier than Australians and Germans and the British who earn equivalent amounts of money, but not as much as the Irish, Portuguese or New Zealanders who earn less.

And it's interesting to note the Japanese have the longest life expectancy of any nationality, living to an average of 81.9 years. This is expected to rise to just over 88 within the next 50 years.

In an attempt to address the problem of "all work and no play" and the effect this has on family life, the government has implemented "The Angel Plan". This encourages fathers to put in less overtime and spend more time with their families and, in a roundabout way, to address the problem of the nation's falling birthrate.

At the moment 23% of male employees in their 30s put in around four hours of overtime a day! In another scheme, all male employees are able to take 6 weeks leave at full pay while their child is less than a year old. To date, no male worker has taken leave, even to celebrate the birth of a new family member.

This extreme and rigid social structure has led to a paradoxical attitude to sex which is both bizarre yet puritanical. It is still very much a patriarchal society, arranged marriages are not uncommon and the woman's place is in the home, yet hostess bars line every street and love hotels are ubiquitous. Pornographic magazines can be found next to the confectionary and late night TV would make a German blush. Stringent censorship disallows pubic hair to be shown but "porno-comics" depicting rape violence are read openly on the train. And disturbingly, "woman only" carriages are now operational after 11pm to avoid unwanted touching and groping!

The man, however, is a slave to the wage which he hands over in its entirety to his wife to spend on housekeeping. What is left is pumped furiously into small-scale gambling arcades called Pachinko.

The other great passion is Karaoke.
On our first night in Tokyo we were introduced to Karaoke Japanese style. This involves a private room which accommodates you and another dozen or so friends. The room has state of the art facilities and you get alcohol all night -- as much as you can drink, on waitress service. There is even an Mr Whippy ice cream machine and a candyfloss maker outside in the corridor, to which you can help yourself. The tacky image I had of Karaoke in the UK, which you would do your utmost to avoid, was superseded with Karaoke Japan-style, which was frighteningly addictive and great fun.

In fact, it was such great fun that with the initial nerves being eroded further by every drink brought by the kindly waitress, I wanted to sing as much as possible and, by the end of the night, I actually found myself running to the toilet and back!

Footnote: I discovered an amazing fact while in Tokyo -- amazing as it appears common knowledge to all that abide there, yet no-one I spoke to seemed particularly concerned about it: There is a 70% chance that a Magnitude 7 earthquake will hit Tokyo in the next 30 years. Incredibly, The Central Disaster Management Council have calculated -- with some remarkable precision -- that if this quake strikes at 6pm, in the winter, and at 15 metres per second then twice as many people will be killed as were in the Great Hanshin Earthquake 10 years ago. What's more, 850,000 homes will be destroyed and 39,000 vending machines will be knocked over!

More importantly, they estimate 112 trillion yen worth of damage will be caused. But 112 trillion yen just happens to be more than the Japanese government's annual budget and is equal to 20% of the GDP. In effect, Japan would go bust!

Now that's worth running to the toilet for!