Japan Really Should Charge Tourists Four Times More
The swarm of visitors to a Japanese castle has prompted one city to suggest higher prices for foreigners — much higher.
Time to pay up.
Photographer: Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images
Step out of the train station at Himeji, a mid-sized Japanese city about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Osaka, and one thing grabs the eye.
Himeji Castle, a centuries-old fortress once home to the great Japanese unifier Toyotomi Hideyoshi1, is the best surviving example of such structures from the Warring States era, many of which were destroyed in air raids during World War II. In 1993, it became Japan’s first World Heritage site; for readers of a different generation, it might be better known as the location of Tiger Tanaka’s training school in the 1967 James Bond movie You Only Live Twice.