We are aliens.
Placing slices of raw fish atop vinegared rice.
Planting groves of trees that bloom in pink for only seven days a year, just to drink beneath their fleeting death.
Bathing naked with strangers. On purpose.
If these sights defy your logic, let them.
Because we are aliens.
Beyond the Terminal Doors
The moment the sliding doors of a Japanese airport open, a wall of humid air wraps around you. Japanese summer is about 1.6 times more uncomfortable than whatever you’re imagining right now.
Step into an airport convenience store and you’ll notice products arranged with the precision of a luxury showroom. Board a train on your way to a Zen garden, only to discover that the train itself already feels like one — quiet, composed, and almost unreal. Public restrooms are often cleaner than operating rooms.
Outside the window, students walk past in uniforms that seem lifted straight from the anime and films you grew up watching. You may find yourself wondering, “Am I still on Earth?”
It’s a reasonable thought. You haven’t simply arrived in another country — you may feel as though you’ve stepped onto another planet.
Soon, you’ll encounter one of this country’s quiet paradoxes: despite its technological sophistication, English communication can feel unexpectedly difficult. Many Japanese study for years, yet freeze in real conversations as words suddenly disappear. Ask one in a moment of panic, and there’s a decent chance the only English that surfaces is: “I choose you.”
The Japan I hope to share exists within these contradictions.
It’s the takoyaki in Dotonbori that burns your tongue even though you knew it would. It’s the single piece of sushi placed on a hinoki counter — so precise and beautiful that you hesitate before eating it. It’s the scent of tatami as you lie on a fresh futon, awakening a quiet, childlike comfort before sleep.
About Michi
I was born in Shizuoka and moved to Osaka at eighteen. That move did something useful: it made me a stranger in my own country. Japan looked different from the outside, even when the outside was still Japan.
I’ve since traveled to more than forty countries and two hundred cities. Every trip sent me back home with new eyes. The neon and the silence, the precision and the chaos — things I had stopped seeing became strange again, in the best possible way.
By day, I work a regular corporate job in Osaka. Before the city wakes up and after it goes to sleep, I photograph, write, and document the Japan that most guidebooks don’t have time for.
About This Site
OtherPlanetJapan.com exists because most English-language travel writing about Japan is written by people who arrived recently and leave eventually. I was born here. I’m not going anywhere.
That’s not a complaint about other writers. It’s a description of what this site offers: the perspective of someone who knows where the locals eat, which temple is worth the 6 AM alarm, and why the deer in Nara are not as friendly as the postcards suggest.
Every article, photograph, and recommendation on this site is mine. No press trips. No sponsored content. No AI-generated filler. Just a Japanese person trying to help you see Japan the way it actually is — which is stranger, quieter, and more beautiful than you’ve been told.
One trip. New eyes.
Get in Touch
Questions, corrections, or just want to say hello:
Email: info@otherplanetjapan.com Contact form: here