We are all a bit fascinated by Japan aren't we. So distant and yet so modern and futuristic. I'm no different and have always wondered what the country was like however what really intrigued me was what it had to offer beyond the huge metropolis of Tokyo. Was the whole country wealthy and modern and full of robot restaurants and Harijuku fashionistas? Or were the provinces something else? A place that suffers from the same economic and social problems that much of the rest of the world does? Well to find out I set off across Japan with my mate @BackpackerBen to see for ourselves, choosing a random town called Itaigowa from the map. What we found was not the Japan we knew existed.