This nationwide 'coming of age day' celebration is held each year on the second Monday in January to congratulate those who have reached the nice round number of 20. The tradition goes back well over a thousand years to a time when young princes marked the beginning of their second decade by switching to wearing adult clothes and hairstyles.

In Japan on one day a year 20-year-olds pull out all the stops for a big, noisy, colourful public party, notes Ian D. Robinson.

Every night of this spectacular annual festival, huge, colourful lantern floats are wheeled through the streets.

From biking, braving local delicacies and touring temples, Ann Newbery discovers there’s plenty to do in Kyoto, Japan.

Nicholas Jones enters a weird world of dress-ups.

Earthquake linked us with Japan in a year of loss but the scale of the destruction on March 11 was overwhelming

Radioactive muttonbirds could be on their way to NZ after the birds were found feeding near Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant.

Dom Joly visits Hiroshima 66 years after his father witnessed the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb firsthand.

Towering over fashionable Nihonbashi, the Mandarin Oriental rises like a great glass tree.

Marketing consultant Graham McGregor on why 'Smile Marketing' is worth testing in any business.