Mine was the only rucksack on the luggage carousel at Tokyo's Narita Airport. Some backpackers do go to Japan, but they go in much smaller numbers than to anywhere else in Asia; in 11 days, I ran into very few. Any child can tell you why: Japan is arguably the world's most pricy country to be trotting around in without the cushion of a paid-for business trip and an expense account.
But for years I had wanted to go there, no matter how briefly; to glimpse something of its layers and masks. I'm not likely to be back that way for a long time again, so it had to be now or perhaps never. At Narita, I swallowed hard and put my card into the ATM to withdraw more yen than I care to remember.
Tokyo is not merely a destination; it is an experience that assaults. It's a weird vortex of neon and noise, of crowds and skyscrapers, of in-your-face consumerism and relentless energy. You would never think this is a city in recession. I caught my breath in my little hotel room in Shinjuku, looking down at the homeless people in the park beneath, who slept by night and swept leaves by day, all day, starting at the first light of 5 a.m. The leaves drifted in my window like small gifts.
In Tokyo, I walked for hours, disorientated delighted by its strangeness.
Women in kimonos walking out of McDonald's, holding Big Macs. Vending machines at every step. Temples at random, like secrets. Vertical horizons. A Louis Vuitton bag hanging from every female wrist. Discovering I was always the only one jay-walking, even on empty streets.
People bowing to each other.
After four days, I headed off to explore more of Honshu with Japan's sole travel bargain, a rail pass available only to foreigners. God help the culture-shocked Japanese when they traverse Ireland with Iarnród Éireann. The shinkansen - bullet trains - blow every other country's public transport systems out of the water. Being on one of these beautiful, pristine, sleek, Concorde-nosed beasts is like being on a plane speeding down a runway. They leave on time, arrive on time, go everywhere, go all the time, and get there in no time. And they even have heated toilet seats.
Kakunodate, a small town in Northern Honshu, is famous for springtime cherry blossom and samurai museum houses. In winter, it feels a bewildering, inscrutable place. I got off the train in the darkening afternoon, stepping into melting snow. The narrow unlit streets were overshadowed by mountains. The trees were bare. The samurai houses were closed. "Not many foreigners come here," said the man in Kakunodate's only open restaurant, where I was the sole diner.
Takayama, in the Hida Valley, surrounded by mountains and jade-green rivers, has lots of traditional old wooden buildings and the Japanese equivalent of the Bunratty Folk Park, the Hida Folk Village. I checked into an icy-cold temple and went looking for somewhere to eat in the unlit streets. Everything closes early off-season in Takayama. I bought beer from a vending machine and explored temples by torchlight. Everywhere, red and gold Japanese maple leaves lay like bright stars against the snow. Every tree looked like a piece of art.
I also began to feel younger and poorer by the day in Japan: as if I was 19 again, inter-railing cluelessly through Europe for a month on an inadequate £150. In Japan, where no one blinks at a €15 coffee, I felt financially out of my league and I didn't like it one bit. I looked at price tags in shops and felt a kind of delicious horror at the knowledge that just one not-so-hefty purchase would cancel out my entire budget for the four months ahead. For souvenirs, I pressed bright leaves, and bought a second-hand kimono in Tokyo's Chicago Thrift Shop.
In Kyoto it was raining. The city was a blur of hazy mountains, with the colours of the trees burning through like lanterns here and there. The owners of the ryokan where I was staying lent me an umbrella, and I stayed out for hours. The smell of incense guided me to temples.
What I loved most were the gardens. Some were behind a glass wall in shops; some private and glimpsed through gateways; some formal and open to all. All surprising, these lovely places of stone and green and gravel were arranged as carefully as the objects in a still-life painting.
Crunky Chocolate. Big Katsu. Pretty Strawberry. These were the names of biscuits and chocolate bars I saw in a shop in Kyoto. Even in Japan, some entertainment comes free.