For years (12 years of Karate, 5 years of Ju-Jitsu) Japanese martial arts have been a huge part of my life. Even though injuries have prevented me from continuing for some time now, a lot of the philosophy and attitudes engrained in these martial arts will stay with me for the rest of my life. A visit to the ‘mother land’ of these arts was something that I had been thinking about for over 15 years. Apart from martial arts I also developed a great interest in the history of the country especially the Samurai era and the war in the Pacific. Moreover it’s Asia, my favourite part of the world! Still somehow after nearly 15 years of travel, I never made it to the ‘land of the rising sun’. There were three important reasons for that. All of which now prove to be very wrong. As I know that a lot of people have the same reservations, I decided to do some ‘Japan myth busting’ because it would be a real pity to miss out on this great destination because of these myths.