Tokyo • Hakone

November 2024 • Tokyo is miraculously quiet for its size—a sprawling gray splotch on the satellite map, teeming with 37 million people and an uncountable population of cute, highly inbred dogs. Signage everywhere helps guide public behavior, often translated to English because certain people need more assistance. Have rarely walked with such relaxed shoulders, confident that the next interaction would be the fairest and squarest since the previous interaction. But there's no denying the wear and tear of a megacity scrum, so the mountain resort of Hakone lies just two hours away via bullet train, then local train, then mountain switchback train, then funicular. A sky gondola carries visitors from volcano rim to lakeside, passing over sulfurous vents, desiccated tree trunks, and technicolor fall foliage. Off to one side is the Hakone Open-Air Museum, an oasis of world-class sculpture and art spread over 70,000 square meters. You could visit only Tokyo and Hakone and come away feeling like you've seen enough of Japan. You'd be wrong, of course.