Japan

Japan is heading into its first Silver Week since 2015 — a rare stretch of back-to-back holidays running September 19th through 23rd — right as the Asian Games kick off in Nagoya and Aichi Prefecture. Osaka adds its own spectacle with the Kishiwada Danjiri Matsuri, where teams haul multi-ton wooden floats through tight street corners at speed, and Tokyo's Ryogoku Kokugikan is mid-tournament for the September Grand Sumo basho. Worth watching before you book: a possible typhoon is tracking toward the country, and bear activity has been running unusually high across Tohoku's Akita, Iwate, and Yamagata prefectures this season. On the infrastructure side, Kyushu Shinkansen service has fully resumed after the July 28th Kumamoto earthquake knocked it offline, though the Japan Rail Pass is about to get more expensive when a price increase kicks in on October 1st. Foodies take note — Tokyo's Myojaku and the ryokan Miyamaso both just picked up new Michelin stars — and Kyoto has quietly tightened access to Arashiyama's bamboo grove with a new timed-entry cap. Universal Studios Japan is marking its own milestone too, with 25th-anniversary Halloween Horror Nights already underway. Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and more — this week's recap covers it from real traveler footage.