Real Japan Today&Edo

Japan is moving right now. And three centuries ago, it starts moving too. Trains run across a hand-drawn map of Japan. Cars flow down the expressways, ships cross the bays. When night falls, the lighthouses along the coast begin to flash at their true intervals. Where rain is falling now, rain falls here. When it snows, snow gathers on the map. This is not a map of Japan to look at. It is a map where Japan is moving, this minute. Then you turn one dial — and the same place becomes three centuries old. The coastline returns to its Edo shape, a daimyo procession walks the highway, and cargo ships set out across the Japan Sea. On the Tokaido, your traveller advances by the distance you yourself have walked. Today and Edo. The same Japan, and you can go back and forth. ■ Forty kilometres from Nihonbashi is free, always About as far as an Edo traveller walked in a day. Inside that circle you…