Japan is at once strangely familiar and utterly strange, stoic and brash, quietly conservative and hyper avant-garde. The clamouring fish markets and silver skyscrapers of Tokyo are only one side of the story. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find pockets of tranquil beauty unlike anything else in Asia – the scent of delicate sencha tea, mountain shrines in Nikko or the fleeting glimpse of a geisha in Gion.