Page 34 - WDT Winter 2018 japan

OBSERVATIONS

Busy train and monorail station just outside Tokyo.

ur plan to cruise around Japan proved to be a neighbors are Korea, China, and Russia.
good way to appreciate the importance of the Volcanic mountain ranges cover about 70 percent of the
sea to the people of the country. It is a 146,000 country, with only 13 percent the land mass suitable for farm-
Osquare mile archipelago about the size of Cali- ing. As we traveled by train throughout the country, we saw
fornia and comprised of four major islands and about 6,800 suburban and industrial creep, especially outside of major cit-
smaller islands. The East China Sea is to its south, the Sea of ies where most Japanese live. Many of the suburbs we passed
Japan to its west and the Pacific Ocean to its east. Its closest were a crowded jumble of large non-descript apartment build-

34 WDT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018