This stunning travel pictorial highlights the fascinating culture, art, architecture, and people of Japan.

The nation of Japan is a diverse mixture of seething metropolises and peaceful temple complexes, of the most advanced in high technology and primitive folk festivals, of kimonos and business suits. Despite or even because of these contradictions, outsiders find the island nation unusually fascinating.

Although Japan is the most Westernized of Asian nations, it still retains its own identity. material and spirituality, gaudiness and simplicity, noise and silence intermingle, forming an exquisite dreamlike creation. Symbols and rituals count as important foundations of the modern state. The past lives on in tea ceremonies and ikebana, in sumptuous temple celebrations and joyful festivals.

More than 180 pictures illustrate the many facets of a nation existing somewhere between the past and the future. Four special sections report on the aesthetics of eating, the pleasures of hot baths, the little-known snow country to the north and the peculiarly Japanese fusion of art and craft.