The land of the rising sun is as difficult to understand as it is beautiful.

On 29 May 2018, as I set foot on Japanese soil, a strange and incomprehensible emotion came over me. I perceived the almost inaudible murmur of a voice trying to speak to me, a sound that came from far away, not in space but in time.

Since then I’ve travelled tens of thousands of kilometres in Japan, on foot, by car, by train and by plane, meeting countless people, and little by little the whisper turned into words, a simple little phrase: ‘stay, you’re home’.

When I returned to Japan in November 2022, after three years of waiting because of the corona, writing about Japan, telling the story of Japan, became a necessity. Small texts were born whose only claim was to share impressions with a few friends. But as the words, experiences and encounters grew, so did the texts.

The paths I took in Japan, the paths of Japanese culture and the paths of the Japanese themselves are at the heart of these texts, which is why I chose to call this blog 和日本道 (wanihondou) which can be translated as “The harmonious ways of Japan”.

The kanji 道 contains a dimension of spirituality that does not exist in the translation, which is why the title remains in its original version.