Our gondola car crested a mountaintop and - suddenly - Mount Fuji appeared before us. We let out an involuntary "aah" as the car swung over a deep valley. After staring at the snow-topped Fuji, Japan's tallest mountain, for a minute or two, we looked to the valley below, where lazy plumes of sulfuric steam escaped from fissures in a volcanic mountainside.
The gondola ride over the mountain was one of the peak experiences of my recent nine-day trip to Japan with my children, both students in their early 20s.
Last spring's earthquake and tsunami, which devastated northeastern Japan, cut foreign tourism by an estimated 30 percent in 2011, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization. But traveling through the southern part of the country - from Tokyo in the east to Hiroshima in the west - we saw no effects of the disaster. Instead, we got a taste of the way Japan weaves modern innovations into a centuries-old culture, as we savored a variety of sights and experiences. (northjersey.com)
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