You cannot find authentic Japan in a tourist brochure; I have seen plenty of flashy ads, and to be perfectly honest with you, I used to be in top management at one of Japan’s biggest advertising agencies; my section dealt with photography assignments for upcoming advertisements for our agency and our clients.  Our clients were camera makers, electronics makers, department stores, tour companies, hotels, and hotel chains across Japan.   When I was with the agency, a typical assignment was photographing a hotel and region, but the region I was photographing had a set route laid out by me and our clients where we wanted the tourists to spend their time and money.  Fast forward about ten years later; I went independent.  Why?  In truth, I got tired of photographing and managing in a huge company and leading people to big-name places on the beaten path.  Think about this - in Japan, there are over 100,000 wild snow monkeys, but where do 99.5% of international and local tourists go to photograph and visit with the Japanese Macaques? They go to Jigokudani Snow Monkey Park (Yamanouchi-machi) Nagano, Japan, where about 200 snow monkeys live in three separate troops. I love all wildlife, and I enjoy visiting the park in Nagano, but these monkeys have become too familiar with humans in my opinion, but they are still wild monkeys, and if your time is limited, it’s worth the trip.   Annually, I add the snow monkey park to my Hokkaido Photo Tour, my Cherry Blossom Photo Tour, and my Essence of Autumn Photo Tour.  But when I take an assignment to photograph or video wild monkeys for TV or a movie company, or if requested by conservationists, my team and I do not go to Nagano; we usually head to the wild frontiers of Niigata, Japan, where the snow monkeys are plentiful, and right next door to Nagano. 

Now you know the snow monkey park is a tourist trap, so let's look at Tokyo, which is a baby city compared to other cities in Japan; Tokyo was born in 1603.  That's right, 1603. It’s not an ancient city of authentic Japan with multiple power spots.  Before 1603 Tokyo was mostly swampland and ocean, and First Nations People and others would not build in the region as it is prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis.  In high risk areas throughout Japan, where people have already experienced the effects of the natural disaster, the tsunami warning stone tablets were placed from 600 or more years ago warning people not to build beyond the marker because the marker represented the furthest the tsunami and reached.  The stones are between 10 - 15 feet tall and can weigh up to a couple of tons, and they reach as far as 5 - 10 kilometers in the lowlands.  They’re impossible to miss, but in spite of all this care, contemporary builders in some of the dangerous areas have removed the stones thinking they are building modern day earthquake impervious buildings.   In certain villages the local government and the people heeded the warning, and will not build past the holy grail tsunami tablets. We all know what happened in Fukushima, and will one day happen to Tokyo; it’s not a matter of if - it’s when!  Any major city that is built on a fault line in a tsunami zone will have to confront this reality someday.  In 2019 on my annual Hokkaido Birding Tour, I didn’t stay at my usual lodging because of heightened seismic activity.  I chose an accommodation 20 kilometers inland for safety’s sake because some of the guests were mature, and I did not want to wake up everyone at 3 am just in case of an offshore earthquake, so being inland meant everyone could sleep soundly. 

Now you know the snow monkey park is a tourist trap, so let's look at Tokyo, which is a baby city compared to other cities in Japan; Tokyo was born in 1603.  That's right, 1603. It’s not an ancient city of authentic Japan with multiple power spots.  Before 1603 Tokyo was mostly swampland and ocean, and First Nations People and others would not build in the region as it is prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis.  In high risk areas throughout Japan, where people have already experienced the effects of the natural disaster, the tsunami warning stone tablets were placed from 600 or more years ago warning people not to build beyond the marker because the marker represented the furthest the tsunami and reached.  The stones are between 10 - 15 feet tall and can weigh up to a couple of tons, and they reach as far as 5 - 10 kilometers in the lowlands.  They’re impossible to miss, but in spite of all this care, contemporary builders in some of the dangerous areas have removed the stones thinking they are building modern day earthquake impervious buildings.   In certain villages the local government and the people heeded the warning, and will not build past the holy grail tsunami tablets. We all know what happened in Fukushima, and will one day happen to Tokyo; it’s not a matter of if - it’s when!  Any major city that is built on a fault line in a tsunami zone will have to confront this reality someday.  In 2019 on my annual Hokkaido Birding Tour, I didn’t stay at my usual lodging because of heightened seismic activity.  I chose an accommodation 20 kilometers inland for safety’s sake because some of the guests were mature, and I did not want to wake up everyone at 3 am just in case of an offshore earthquake, so being inland meant everyone could sleep soundly.

But these natural disasters are every fifth generation give or take a generation.  And the main reason Tokugawa Ieyasu the Shogun named Tokyo the new capital of Japan over Kyoto is Tokyo was one of his main domains presented to him by Oda Nobunaga.  And it was sure to cement the Tokugawa family's lineage, as it was 100% under his control, but Kyoto was under the control of the emperor and other families.   This was a smart move, and Tokugawa Ieyasu was correct. He cemented his family's place in history books, and they would hold onto power until 1868 and are still an influential family in today's Japan.  Another reason Tokugawa Ieyasu moved the capital to Tokyo was its mild winters, dry, sunny, and warm but little precipitation, and it snows once or twice a winter.  Unlike Kyoto and most of Japan, which has four distinct seasons, such as Nagano and Niigata, which are in the top 10 snowiest places on our planet, Niigata is known as YukiGuni - Snow Country, Japan.   And where I have my 100-year-old traditional Japanese home, it mostly rains in winter as we enjoy the Sado Island effect, and we get about double the amount of snow Tokyo receives, but 10 km inland, the region has one to two meters of snow.   Along the Sea of Japan, winter is the rainy season, cool, and lots of snow or rain depending on location.   Tokyo and Kanto's regions' rainy season is from about May to July; during the rainy season of 2019 and 2020, there were 60 days or more without sunshine, just grey.  Two months of rain, humidity, and house mold in Niigata; house mold is rare as the rainy season is in the winter.

Kanazawa to Hokkaido, it is gratifying to explore the region and make it a place I feel comfortable leading YukiGuni and the Sea of Japan Photo Tours.  Years ago, I started personal pilgrimages with my artistic media as Zen Buddhist monks, Shinto Priests, artisans, the samurai, local citizens, and even travelers from abroad such as William Adams, known widely as Samurai Williams, one of the few non-Japanese who had done so in the Edo Period.  More than one kind of samurai has walked these ancestral paths throughout Japan, and I, too, have been treading on the same samurai paths in search of inner peace and where the energy of Japan naturally resides, on Zen pilgrim’s routes and focused in power spots, as on Sado Island in Niigata.  Niigata is a prefecture in Japan where authentic Japan thrives, where samurai and Buddhist treasures are hidden from the eyes of ordinary tourists but on full display for people who know what questions to ask and what to look for.    Along the Sea of Japan, in Akita, Aomori, Niigata, and Yamagata, are on the busiest birding routes in Asia, and we have fantastic seascapes, landscapes, and an abundance of wildlife photography opportunities in the wild frontier.   Also, if you enjoy natural and healthy good foods and drink, Niigata is known as the capital for Japanese cuisine, and there are as many brands of sake as there are stars in the sky, and Niigata is famous for it summer festivals which happen almost every night starting in spring and continuing well through autumn.  It’s authentic Japan and what I am looking for.