My friend has a spreadsheet on Japan. Another has a handbound scrapbook ready to pass to the next person planning a trip. It’s the kind of destination that brings out our inner Type A – people plan holidays for years, wanting to fit everything in. But for those of us on a budget or time crunch, the question becomes: how do you distil an entire country into a single trip?
The answer, I discovered, might be Hyogo. This main island prefecture is sometimes touted as “Japan in miniature”, and there’s a geographical reason for its diversity: Hyogo is one of only a handful of prefectures that borders two seas – the Sea of Japan to the north and the Seto Inland Sea to the south.
