We've just finished making all the necessary reservations for our trip to Japan in the first half of this coming October, including flights between Israel and Japan as well as hotels and flights inside Japan. I see this as another (research-cum-)honeymoon trip of ours though we already had one to Moscow (and Tbilisi) last summer right after we got married here in Jerusalem.
The main purpose of (the first half of) our first trip was my getting acquainted with who and what have made my wife in her native Moscow what she is now both privately and professionally. In this second trip of ours I want her to get acquainted in turn with who and what have influenced me in my native Japan in both areas of life.
In the research part of this trip we'll work at one of the libraries of an alma mater of mine in Japan, which has one of the biggest collections of books on languages and linguistics. In the (belated) honeymoon part of the trip I want to introduce her to my parents and close relatives, private friends, and professional colleagues as well as the places I lived in and/or I like in Japan and the Jewish community in Kobe, my Jewish "alma mater" in Japan.
Unfortunateky, we'll be forced to visit only a small number of places in what little free time we have, including Yurihonjo, Nyuto, Kobe, Kyoto, Tokyo and Hakone, and leave for other trips of ours in Japan so many places I like to visit again or for the first time with my wife, including Beppu, Yufuin, Kurokawa and Kusatsu.
Planning this short trip of ours in Japan, I'm amazed anew to find how rich the country is in its culture and nature. I also reexamine it and its possible attractions from the viewpoint of my wife, who has never been to Japan, this time. In the meanwhile she has started to learn Japanese quite intensively as a (or often the) means of communication with those people she is going to meet there.
As I plan this trip of ours in Japan and also reexamine it and its possible attractions from the viewpoint of my wife, who has never been to Japan, I feel as if I were rediscovering Japan and its natural and cultural richness. I'm especially interested to hear her impressions of the country, including its nature, culture, and people after and even during another (research-cum-)honeymoon trip of ours, as Japan is fundamentally different in many ways from both Russia and Israel.