Best Time to Visit Japan

The answer to the question "Which is the best time to visit Japan?" is "Anytime." The moment of arrival may indeed have its peculiar humor--gay, sober or melancholy. But one will find the charms of Japan, like those of Cleopatra, to be full of infinite variety.

Japan is a long chain of islands; its head (Karafuto) is in the same latitude as England and Canada, and its tail (Formosa) touches the semi-tropical lines of Hawaii, India and Arabia. Japan is mountainous, like Italy or Switzerland, but it has 27,947 miles of sea coast, abounding in picturesque scenes of mountain and sea.

Japan combines all sorts of weather, from the foggy gloom of June to the dazzling colors of August, from the bracing coolness of maple-brown autumn to the icicled rigor of winter. It has been facetiously said that England has no climate, having only weather, good or bad. In Japan, however, there is a good deal of both climate and weather. The four seasons are as clear cut as are their names. Indeed, this is one of the fundamental principles around which life in Japan revolves. Some understanding of the four seasonal divisions is essential to a right appraisal of the character and poetry of Japan. Visitors may do well to look a little closely into this subject. Let us, then, briefly speak of the lure of Japan's four seasons.

No comments: