History:
Two deities in the ancient time, Izanagi and Izanami, went down from "The Plains of the High Heaven" to the turbid world that Izanagi churned with his spear  to solidify it. A land emerged  called Japan.  It was populated by Izanagi & Izanami. In his Japanese chronicle, Nicolas Bouvier, wrote that the manner of which a people looks at its origin tells more than psycho sociological analyses, quotation of memory. More scientifically  the settlement in Japan is attested as of 200,000 BC. Its history is presented according historical periods:

---- Jomson period c13.000-BC-c400BC.
Around 13.000BC a culture called Jomson appeared leaving potteries. There were Hunter-gatherers. The Ainu people of the Hokkaido Island would be their descendant.

---- Yayoi period c400BC-c250AD.
Around 400BC a people called Yayoi came from the peninsula of Korea without it were known from where they came. They brought the technology of bronze and iron as well as the wet culture of rice. Chinese chronicles called Japan, "the Land of the Dwarfs". There was a hundred kingdoms in 1st century AD.

---- Yamato period 250-710.
Around 3rd century AD Queen Himiko gathered these Kingdoms. The first attested emperor of Japan was Suijin (31ÅD). This period saw the adoption of the Chinese writing as well as Buddhism diffused by missionaries coming from the Paekche Kingdom of Korea.
In 604 Prince Shotoku made adopt a constitution of Chinese style including the hierarchical principle of the Confucianism. However the hierarchy was based on birth with the difference of the Chinese merit by exams. Japan became a nation-state.

---- Nara period 710-794.
Around 710 Nara was the permanent capital until 794. It was built like Chang'an according to a grid with Buddhist monasteries of great beauty.

---- Period Heian (Kyoto) 794-1185.
In 794 the capital was transferred to Kyoto by Emperor Kammu due to a small-pox epidemic. This period was the apogee of the court etiquette; the imperial deliquescence of the power brought about the emergence of a military one of the Warlords -daimyo- and their retainers -samurai- From this date the real power was exerted by Shogun -generalissimo- with a ceaseless fight between clans up to the advent of the Meiji era. The history of Japan was dominated by clanic wars for the shogunate without questioning of the imperial descent which makes Japan the unique country in the world where the same dynasty reigns. The Minamoto clan (Genji) and the Taira clan (Heike) devoted a naval battle to Dan-no-ura with the victory of Minamoto.

---- Kamakura period 185-1333.
Minamoto Yoritomo received the title of shogun in 1192. Died accidentally his Masko widow organized regency and was called the nun Shogun. Her own family, Hojo, ensured the shogunate. At that time Mongolian  hordes occupied China and Korea from where naval expeditions were launched towards Japan in 1274 and 1285 destroyed by violent typhoons called "Divine Wind" -kamikaze- term used during the Pacific War by suicide pilots. Japan became the "Land of the Gods". For this period Zen philosophy was imported from China preaching austerity and the self-discipline, it attracted the class of the warriors -samurai-

---- Muromachi period 1333-1568.
The alliance between Emperor Go-Daigo and general Ashikaga Takauji put an end to Hojo Shogunate at the time of a battle in Kyoto. But the refusal of the emperor to confer the title of shogun bought about him a confrontation between the two parties with the victory of the general who exiled the emperor and took the title of shogun. The last century entered civil wars between Warlords. Although the shogunate was weak this period was marked by arts, theatre and tea ceremony. Around the end of this period three Portuguese vessels landed the coasts of Japan bringing Christianity and firearms. In 1590 the very renowned missionary François-Xavier unloaded.

---- Azuchi-Momoyama period 1568-1600.
Warlord Oda-Nobunaga seized Kyoto. His ambition was to carry out a unique Kingdom -Tenka Fubu- by redistributing the grounds to the daimyo. Betrayed by one of his Generals, It committed suicide -seppuku, harakiri- Cruel General Toyotomi Hideyoshi, called Saru-chan, due to his small monkey tall, continued the reunification of Kingdoms. Suspicious he expelled or carried out Christian missionaries. His scheme was to constitute an pan-Asian power whose first stage was the conquest of Korea without success. His Hideyori son succeeded to him in 1598.

---- Edo/Tokugawa period 1600-1868.
General Tokugawa Ieyasu seized the power and the emperor conferred to him the title of shogun in 1603. Japan entered the era -sakoku- secluded country. This period was marked by the seclusion of the country and its stability. Confucianism was officially encouraged reinforcing hierarchy and status quo. People were divided into four classes, -shi- warriors -samurai-, -no- farmers, -ko- craftsmen and -sho- merchants. This social organization is not without pointing out the Indo-European structure in three functions analyzed by George Dumézil as well as the castes in India. Repression was cruel -doing the right thing- if not the punishment was the crucifixion, to see the episode of the war in Malaysia described by "A Town like Alice". This period saw the development of the theatre -kabuki- and of the letters as well as the drafting up of the samurai warrior code -bushido- Seclusion could have lasted without an external intervention.

---- Meiji period 1868-1912.
In 1853 US Commodore Matthew Perry doing a gunboat diplomacy required the opening of Japan for  trade and the giving of the principle of the most favoured nation. The shogunate lived this situation like a humiliation. The reaction was the restoration of the power of Emperor Mutsuhito in 1868 who settled in Edo renamed Tokyo. Ito Hirobumi became Prime Minister and was the craftsman of the modernization and the westernisation of Japan developing the principle -fukoku, kyohei- rich country, strong army. Daimyo returned the lands, the four-tier class system was abolished and the conscription was established. Japan took for model the Prussian army and the British navy applying to its profit the gunboat diplomacy both in China and in Russia.

---- Taisho period 1912-1926.
With the death of Emperor Mutsuhito his son Yoshihito replaced him. The policy of democratization continued with the introduction of the voting rights. European powers limed in the First World War let Japan seize the German possessions and take the control of China in 1915. But dissatisfaction grew due to the western following the treaty of Washington founding a quota of the warships as well as rejection of the Japanese proposals by the League of Nations -SDN-

---- Showa period 1926-1989.
Emperor Hirohito replaced his father but was a weak emperor. Power was allocated once more to the military, which pretesting the crisis of 1929 as consequence of individualism and selfishness by Westerners developed the policy of territorial expansion to ensure the resources of the country. In 1931 Japan invades Manchuria, in 1937 China with the massacre of Nanjing always progressing westwards to Malaysia etc. On December 7, 1941 bombardment of Pearl Harbour brought USA into the war. The battle of Midway in June 1942 was turn of the  Pacific War which was completed on August 6 & 8, 1942 by the bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Before the occupation by USA Japan had never been conquered by a foreign power. General Douglas McArthur founded a policy of demilitarization and democratization to make an American bastion against Communism. Emperor Hirohito was not tried in international court as war criminal. D. MacArthur played stability and rebuilding of the country.

---- Heisei period 1989-present.
Emperor Askihito succeeded his father completing the economic expansion of Japan. But since 1990 the country entered in recession during ten years worsened by an earthquake in 1995 and the attack to the sarin gas in the Tokyo subway. The collapse of the traditional values is visible in great cities where youth approaches exuberant getups. Japanese society changes quickly.

Cultural facts:
The behaviour of Japaneses is hardly different from the other people contrary to stereotypes of the Western. Admittedly, like elsewhere, the social behaviour is the resultant of history of the country as well as its geographical shape. Five aspects make it possible to know the Japanese people in the 21st century.

---- Japan is an island, finally islands,
---- Japan was never neither occupied nor influenced by missionaries,
---- Until the end of the 20th century the majority of Japaneses lived in the countryside,
---- Japan is a steep-mountain country, flat zones are over-populated,
---- The social structure was for the Edo period divided into classes.

The Japanese behaviour is dominated by the harmony, no discord or stormy debate. Individualism is put in props store. The origin must be found, like in Korea, in Confucian philosophy and Buddhist religion. Japanese is meticulous, industrious and technically skilled.

Two spiritual steams occupy the religious space knowing that Japanese practises both. Shinto is the ancestral religion whose gods occupy the natural world down below. Whereas Buddhism has to make with the world up above after death. Thus the ritual of birth, marriage, harvest and business fall within the competence of Shinto whereas  funeral is Buddhism.

The Japanese language would belong to the Ural-Altaic family but this origin is disputed like for Korean. It is regarded as an isolate linguistic. Chinese contributions, in ancient times, and English, more recently, are significant. The major difficulty of Japanese lies in its writing which mixes three different scripts; -kanji- Chinese script, -katakana- representation of foreign words, -hiragana- adaptation of the kanji to Japanese words. Finally the romanisation by the Hepburn system was introduced in 1887, -romaji- revised in 1989 by -kunrei-

Population of Japan is approximately 127 million inhabitants. Like Korea Japan has an homogeneous population awaited the immigration laws. Foreigners account for approximately 1.5% of the population including Korean 32%. The birth rate is 1.3 child by woman.

Japan is an archipelago including approximately 3900 islands from which largest are, Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku. Several islands were annexed after WWII of which the Kuril Islands by Russia. Japan is the country which has the strongest seismic activity, around 1000 earthquakes a year. Tokyo is approximately at the same latitude as Teheran, Los Angeles and Crete.

I Team:
My MAN truck was on a vessel to sail from Brisbane to Vancouver BC, Canada. During this time I visited Korea then Japan as backpacker.

II Journey:
The journey consisted in going from Fukuoka to Tokyo by train with a JR Pass brought in Brisbane.
2.1 the trip: The plan of road was studied in Brisbane, lived reality differs only by the expenditure realities and hotels booked to late.
2.2 the road network: I very little practised the road network and only in proximity of the cities to visit sights in neighbourhood.
2.3 The trip as backpacker: This type of trip has the advantages of its disadvantages and vice-et-versa. The advantages are the contacts necessary with the population to be directed. and the use of Tourist Offices. The major disadvantage is time, the dependence on public transport is time consuming. The sequence of the trains did not pose any problem because the preparation and the choice of the schedules enabled me to book a seat on each arrival at the stage for the next city. All the stations have coin lockers for the luggage..

III Bivouacs:
Of course no bivouac, I went down in budget hotels recommended by Lp. They always have TV often with a large flat-faced screen and sometimes a computer, and in great cities a free connection either by cable or WiFi.

V Supply of food:
According to my practice I lunched in markets and in food courts. Japanese food will not leave an imperishable memory. I am not a sushi/sashimi enthusiast.

IV Fluids:
NA

VI Money:
Bank HSBC is present in Tokyo. I withdrew money at ATM's "7 Eleven" convenient stores. Payment by Visa card is possible in certain hotels sometimes with an extra charge.

VII Guide books:
As before I used Lonely Planet, Lp, with a critical eye considering its ill-considered tendency to panegyric. Tourist Information Centres are generally located at JR stations. As in Korea there is helpful & English-speaking staff and sometimes a document giving buses to visit local sights. Tourist booklets are abundant and very well documented. Alas some sites do not have English subtitled labels.

VIII Passport, visa, border crossing:
To enter Japan one needs a return ticket either by plane or by another transport to leave it. This checking was made at the immigration service on arrival. After control I received a free three months VOA.

IX My appreciation:
9.1 I liked:
-- I adored to visit Buddhist and Shinto's monasteries as well as old castles the whole entirely restored according to the sketch of Jacques Duphilo.
-- I went off the beaten tracks as Matsue, Fukui-Eihie-ji and Ise-jingu. But it is necessary to have their own wheels to go to the face of deep Japan.
-- Budgets hotels recommended by Lp have a sufficient comfort and caretakers are accustomed foreigners.
-- January, not very cold except in mountain, is favourable with visits because in one month I had only a rainy day and the remainder of time the sun heated the atmosphere.
9.2 I hated:
-- Prohibition to take pictures in sites and museums obliging me to stole some when it was possible, seldom.
-- Electric wire which hang in streets of all the cities and especially in small lanes.
-- As everywhere in Asia, lato sensu, commercial boards are noisy and colours sharp.
9.3 I regretted:
-- The emotional shock at the first visit of Tokyo in October 2003 did not reproduce. I was in a great modern city following the example Western cities, only temples strewn in the districts made specificity of it. The visit of Edo-Tokyo Museum taught me that the old city primarily made up of wooden houses had been shaven by American bombardments to obtain the surrendering of Japan which intervened only after the hecatomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese people paid a heavy tribute with the arrogance of his leaders.
-- Not being a night bird I did not make the trip of the bars, recommended by the Lp, I did not thus fail in the adjacent capsule hotels. It is probable that I missed looking further into a significant aspect of Japanese social psychology.

X Relevance of the trip by camper :
I had informed the journey in Japan with my truck, I gave up. At the time of the trip by train I noted that vertical signposts are always subtitled in English. Motorways are toll ways. I did not see any campsite, but parkings on motorway, carparks of the places of interest and in open country is possible nowhere I did not see prohibition as in Australia. According to JAF there is a campsite booklet but only in Japanese.