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SUMMER IN JAPAN
You’ve seen the skyline. Now see where it leads
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Summer in Japan is a full-sensory season: festivals thundering through the streets, fireworks blooming above rivers, and taiko drums echoing between wooden houses. It’s the time when Japan lets loose. From Hokkaido’s lavender fields to Okinawa’s coral reefs, the energy runs high and the colours turn electric. The humidity can be fierce, but it’s part of the experience: cooled by iced matcha, soothed in mountain onsen, and sweetened with kakigōri shaved ice or cold noodles eaten by a stream. Escape to the Japanese Alps for fresh air, dive into the sea off Kyushu, or join a countryside matsuri where locals dance until dawn. Bring linen, stamina, and curiosity. Because this is Japan at full volume.
Dine on Kawadoko platforms above rushing rivers
Taste summer’s elegance in mountain valleys, where restaurants build open-air decks above the stream, cooling by the sound of water
Follow fireflies through forest glades in Okayama
For a few short weeks each June, the night glows with living light
Lose yourself in a sea of lanterns at a summer matsuri
From Aomori’s fiery Nebuta floats to Kyoto’s river of candles at Arashiyama, Japan’s festivals burn brightest after dark
Walk flower paths at Hydrangea Temple in Kamakura
rain brings its own beauty: slopes awash with blue and violet blooms that thrive under summer drizzle.
Watch dawn rise over Urashima Flower Park
where land dissolves into sea and sky, and the horizon turns the same pink as the petals beneath your feet
Stroll the living painting of Ritsurin gardens
A masterpiece of still water and sculpted pine, luminous in the green glow of summer
Watch fireworks bloom over Lake Biwa
The reflection doubles the magic: an hour of skyfire mirrored on Japan’s largest lake
Sleep to the hum of cicadas in a thatched-roof farmhouse in Shirakawa-go
Long evenings, paper lanterns, and the soft percussion of a rural summer night
Dive through cobalt seas in Okinawa’s Kerama Islands
Swim with sea turtles and coral gardens in water so clear it feels like flying
Wander Hokkaido’s flower fields in Furano
Rows of colours stretch to the horizon, perfuming the air and softening the northern sun
Eat shaved ice with matcha and condensed milk in Kanazawa
Part dessert, part ritual — Japan’s favourite heatwave indulgence, elegant in its simplicity
Float the rapids of Shikoku’s Oboke Gorge
Carve through emerald canyons by raft or kayak, where summer air smells of cedar and spray
If you want to summer like the Japanese do, alpine retreats and lantern festivals, riverside ryokan with the sounds of cicadas and wind chimes
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