Our knowledge of Japan was rather limited and needed to be extended after our research on the Thai-Burma railway and Pacific war. Mike's insights from his travels and our enjoyment of Japanese gardens had given us some hints that we would enjoy our trip.
We started with a novel from Mullum; Kagami by Elizabeth Kata. It was a history of Japan from the Meiji restoration to the Kanto earthquake through 3 generations and gave a taste of aristocracy of Imperial Japan, Samurai and the modernisation and rise of the merchant class with western influence.
This book was enhanced with the TV series Shogun, the movie The Last Samurai and ?'s series on Japan. We also found other items online.
Lonely Planet was also useful for planning our trip as well as online sites.
I also read a Pulitzer prize winning book on Hirohito although I ran out of energy by the time it reached the 1930s and militarism, but it gave a background on the form of government with imperial, military and democratic forces.
Since returning, I have been reading a Japanese book on Hirohito written by a man who worked within the palace area.
It is intriguing that the people of Japan were so nice, welcoming and helpful. We were also very impressed with the level of organisation of trains and things.
We did accumulate a large number of plastic bags and found a lot of packaging on the food we bought, but this takeaway lifestyle was not one that we have in Australia.
We managed remarkably well with virtually no language and were rescued a couple of times by people who thought we needed help.
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