Welcome to Nagoya Station.

Pop quiz: Where is the world's largest train station? A: In Nagoya. I know, you've never heard of it. And it's a trick question, because the station technically includes those two towers, making its total area, technically, nearly 5 million square feet. But Nagoya is Japan's third-largest metropolis; while it's much smaller than Osaka, let alone Tokyo, and less well-known than Kyoto or Hiroshima, it is larger than Seattle and San Diego, and bigger by some measures than the Bay Area. Almost entirely leveled by American bombs during the war (a port city, Nagoya was Japan's center for weapons manufacturing, and is still its industrial heartland), Nagoya may be the best-located city in Japan, as it's between and not far from Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and the Japanese Alps of Nagano prefecture. I used it as a base for day trips; unfortunately, there wasn't time left to see much of the city. What I did see was largely suburban, on the train and the walk to and from Aaron's place. It was working-class suburbia, too; and yet there's something so much more humane about Japanese suburbs. They're less suburban, of course, but still peaceful. Not to be too ideological, but here, I think, is why: cars don't dominate. Noise, fumes, physical risk and accomodations for the automobile are not everywhere; there's just much less asphalt. Suburban Japanese drive, of course, but within reason; they've got the balance right. They haven't given over much of their landscape, and their lives, to cars -- and yet they haven't sacrificed convenience. But I'll get off my soapbox now. I'll just say that my lasting memory of Nagoya is of a street, near Aaron's apartment, with a linear park in its median, a park that probably would've been paved over in America. It may have been one of the most pleasant places I've ever been.

Next stop: Kyoto, seen here from Kiyomizu Temple.

Kyoto is world-famous for its temples, shrines, and geisha. I expected the serene yin to Tokyo's kinetic yang. What I got was a modern Japanese city, on a hot day, during Golden Week -- the national holiday when crowds flock to places like the temples and shrines of Kyoto. I even experienced more traffic than I encountered elsewhere in Japan -- for one scary moment, while crossing a broad, busy street whose walk signals for the blind made the exact same sound as those in the East Bay, I thought I was back in California. My theory is that as a mid-sized city, Kyoto is big enough to be congested, but not big enough to have overcome auto-dependency. Yet every time I began to believe that Kyoto might be overrated, I'd turn the corner into a calm, picturesque alleyway, or come upon a park with ponds stocked with koi. Kyoto is not overrated, but like my hometown of San Francisco, it is a real city, messy and not always pretty. It's not a postcard.

My first stop in Kyoto: The observation platform at Kyoto Tower, by Kyoto Station. The historic core of Kyoto sits in a valley surrounded on three sides by verdant hills and bisected by a broad, lazy river. I climbed the tower to get the lay of the land: Our destinations today will be, from right to left, a temple recommended to me by a guy in a bar in Tokyo (hey, you've got to start somewhere; there are 17 U.N. World Heritage Sites in Kyoto), the Kamo River, which I knew to be lined by a pedestrian path, and the old geisha district of Gion.

Approach to Kiyomizu Temple, in the city's eastern foothills. Kiyomizu dates to the 8th century; the oldest of its existing buildings were erected in the early 17th century, around the beginning of the Edo period, when the Shogunate moved the capital from Kyoto to Tokyo. So as you can imagine, it's a popular tourist destination. Like all such attractions in Japan, its surroundings are a bit of a trap: Gift shops, crowds and tour buses line approaching streets. This isn't even the busiest approach to Kiyomizu; that would be Teapot Lane, parallel and a block over, which I simply could not take.

Entrance to main hall at Kiyomizu Temple. No, I never made it inside. The grounds and surrounding scenery, however, are lovely. (And on the steps leading to the temple, I happened across a pair of geisha. See the Wallpaper section for that photo.)

After some walk, I arrived at the Kamo River, a true oasis in the heart of the city. It was just beginning to cool in advance of the evening, and residents of Kyoto had flocked to the river's banks. Oddly perhaps, the Kamo reminded me of Cherry Creek in Denver, a similarly shallow if much narrower waterway, also lined by a pedestrian and bicycle path. One big difference: Americans walk along their rivers, they jog, they bike, and they rollerblade. They rarely seem to just sit and enjoy.

Shirakawa Minami-dori, Gion. On the east bank of the river, across from downtown, lies the old geisha district, including this canal-lined lane. Yes, I believe those are okiya -- traditional geisha houses. The golden era of the geisha, of course, ended along with premodern Japan after World War II, yet there are still a couple hundred or so practicing geisha in Kyoto. It's said that after dark, in the right parts of town, you can see them going about their business. In the daylight, you might come across a few.

Hanami-koji, Gion. The district's main street, as evening descends. Unfortunately, I'd been sidetracked by Marayuma-koen, a delightful and deceptively large park, and on the way back to Kyoto Station and Tokyo I wanted to take a walk through downtown Kyoto -- not pictured here, but typical of Japanese downtowns -- and take a ride on the Kyoto Subway, which along with the Nagoya Subway, Nagoya's Linimo maglev and the Hiroshima Streetcar can be found in the Railfanning section.

Kyoto Tower, from Kyoto Station. Sadly, I didn't have time to explore the station. A glass-and-steel shrine to the millennium in Japan's most sacred big city, it features a 15-story atrium with a top-level observation deck and 11th-floor skywalk.

Anyway, welcome now to Osaka. The Dotombori River runs through its namesake neighborhood in the entertainment zone of Minami ("south"; Osaka's business district, "Kita," is north and includes the Umeda district covered below).

As you can see, I got rained on in Osaka. But not rained out -- I had resolved, and so I was determined, to experience as much as possible (in a day, anyway) of Japan's second-largest city. In a sense, Osaka is the Los Angeles to Tokyo's New York; it's roughly the same size as L.A., and it's looked down upon by many residents of Tokyo as a simpler, less sophisticated place. Yet Osakans enjoy a reputation as proud but unpretentious, fun-loving people; I didn't meet any, but it was here that I had the quintessential experience of an American in Japan, when two girls from Fukuoka approached me to "practice their English." "Hehro," they said (and yes, that is what the accent sounds like). "Where are you from?" San Francisco, I told them. "Ah!" they squealed in unison. "Sanu-furanceesco!"

Amerika-mura district. You may have heard that Japanese youth fetishize all things American. You have no idea. In Osaka I checked out a multilevel thrift store, hoping to find a t-shirt for a few hundred yen with some random bit of kanji on it. But what I found was the reverse: rack after rack of the exact same clothing you'd find at a Mission District thrift, midwestern junior high volleyball t-shirts and such. If it's got English on it, no matter what it says, Japanese kids will wear it. At the heart of Amerika-mura ("America Village"), block after block of U.S.-themed shops, is a square where I stopped to rest for a few minutes. Hip-hop was blasting over speakers projected into the park; at one point I heard a promo by Ja Rule, reminding me that I was listening to Power 106 FM. Power 106? That's a station out of Los Angeles, broadcast into the streets of Osaka live via satellite. We really are living in a global village. In Amerika-mura, by the way, a girl leaned out of a van to greet me, the conspicuously white gaijin: "Hehro!" she said.

Shinsaibashi-suji shopping arcade. Japanese love to shop, and don't fear crowds. Never was that clearer than on a rainy Sunday afternoon in downtown Osaka.

Pedestrian underpass, Umeda district. You've heard that the Japanese ride bikes. Again, you have no idea. Everywhere you go in Japan, you'll find large bicycle parking lots -- this one must've fit a thousand -- full of indistinguishable, cheap "granny"-style bikes, utilitarian transportation for a practical people. None are locked, of course, as theft is virtually unheard of. I wondered how folks knew which bikes were theirs, so I stopped to watch. They walk right up, take their bikes, and ride away. There must've been some kind of customization I just couldn't see.

Hanshin Expressway. Yes, it's true -- in Japan, there are freeways built over rivers. It's not surprising, really, given Japanese attitudes toward the environment (landscapes are revered, but development doesn't necessarily desecrate them, and cities are cities), and the lack of available space in Japanese cities. But by the time American freeways came along, after the war, our cities were built out as well. Why didn't the Japanese just plow through urban neighborhoods, like we did? In Japan, my (ex-planner) friend Aaron told me, there are no eminent domain laws. Want to build a freeway, airport runway or government-supported mall on private property? If the owner refuses your offer, you'll just have to find another way. It's interesting the way Japan's more libertarian approach to planning has resulted in livelier cities, but not really ironic if you've read your Jane Jacobs. (Although dear old St. Jane, no doubt, would be as put off by the above scene as I was.)

Among urbanists, this is one of the most famous and iconic sights in all of Japan: an offramp from the Hanshin Expressway through a highrise. Talk about finding another way! Japanese engineering is truly futuristic and impressive, if often a bit frightening.

Not Osaka's tallest skyscraper, but its best-known, the Umeda Sky Building continues our theme of futuristic twin towers (see TMG, Tokyo). To reach the observation level, you must take the escalator between the towers, in the hole near the top. Unfortunately -- or fortunately, depending on your fear of heights -- it's enclosed.

Floating Garden Observatory, Umeda Sky Building. On a clear day, you can go on the roof, and see nearly to Kyoto. On the day I visited, the view was more ... atmospheric. But the Umeda skyline made for a moody backdrop. Incidentally, in the next room was a salsa-dancing class. Ichi, ni, san! the instructor shouted, over and over. Thanks to him, I can now count to three in Japanese.

Finally, let's pay a visit to the world's saddest city, Hiroshima.

The A-Bomb Dome. Today, Hiroshima is a typical Japanese city; the lights to the right, in the background, brighten the field for the Hiroshima Carp baseball team. Hiroshima has healed, much as it can. But at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, a Monday, the first nuclear weapon -- "Little Boy" -- exploded about 2,000 feet overhead. Because the blast radiated outward, part of the Industrial Promotion Hall along the Motoyasu River -- the Dome -- was left standing. The northern end of the island from which this photo was taken is now Peace Memorial Park.

Cenotaph, Peace Memorial Park. The dome is a ruin, a result of history, but not necessarily -- not just from looking at it -- of tragedy. It's in the park that you begin to feel what happened here, to really realize it. At the cenotaph, children under the watchful eyes of their parents leave flowers, bow, and say a silent prayer. To describe the site as "solemn" isn't quite right. It's heartbreaking.

Model at Peace Memorial Museum. The bomb leveled Hiroshima -- literally. It's easy to see the destruction of buildings. One can only imagine the destruction of lives.

Exhibit at Peace Memorial Museum. This clock was found, stopped, after the blast.

Exhibit at Peace Memorial Hall. To put this in perspective, roughly 3,000 people were killed on 9/11.

Exhibit at Peace Memorial Hall. A few of the tens of thousands of victims who were identified.

Painting at Peace Memorial Museum.

Peace Watch at Peace Memorial Museum. Visiting Hiroshima is draining -- I had to take a break midway to sit on a bench by the river and fight back tears -- but not just because of what happened there. Peace Memorial Park is not just a history lesson; its exhibits repeat the point, over and over, that we still haven't learned its ultimate lesson, that of our capacity for inhumanity. It's easy, as an American visiting Hiroshima, to think to yourself we did this. It's even easier to think I didn't do this; some men from my country did this, before I was born. It's easy to get angry; but then you think, they had their reasons. They thought, ironically, that it might ultimately save lives, and they may have been right (although if the point was to make a point, why not just demonstrate on Tokyo Bay?). But ultimately, none of that matters. In war, everyone is a villain, and everyone is a victim. At least, the participants are. Many of the people of Hiroshima may have supported their government, but in the end they were just ordinary people having an ordinary morning before their lives expired in a flash ... over 100,000 of them (at least the lucky ones; the rest died slow, painful deaths). They were men, women, children and elderly. They were people like you and me, with hopes, dreams, and errands to run that day. To this day, every time a nuclear test is carried out somewhere in the world, the mayor of Hiroshima sends a telegram to that nation's leaders, asking them to please, please stop. Until a few years ago, it was tradition for the prime minister of Japan to meet with hibakushu -- blast survivors -- on every anniversary. It no longer is.

After a couple of hours in Peace Memorial Park, I had to leave. But where to go? I'd set aside the day for Hiroshima. Flipping through my Lonely Planet guidebook, I spied a glimpse of a surreal image, of one of the traditional "three greatest sights" in Japan: the Floating Torii of Miyajima. Miyajima, it turns out, is a shrine-covered island not far from Hiroshima, and the torii -- shrine gate -- is well worth the crowded ferry ride there. Did I say ferry ride? The whole island was crawling with families, with altogether-too-happy children. It was the antithesis of Peace Park, but under the circumstances, I have to admit I was alright with the Disneyland atmosphere. Anyway, the existing shoreline shrine dates to the 12th century, and once upon a time, all who approached it had to do so through the torii.

At Senju-kaku, the "Pavilion of 1,000 Mats" on Miyajima, I stumbled across ... some sort of ceremony. Just a note: To take this photo, a long-exposure shot in a dark room requiring great stillness, I had to prop myself up on some steps. I was there for just a few seconds before a monk came along to shoo me along. At which point I learned a lesson: If you're in Japan, and you think something might be disrespectful, it probably is.

Finally we return to Nagoya Station for a parting shot of two of the most common sights in Japan: a salaryman (in this case, in a hurry) and some schoolgirls (in this case, being obedient). It's often said that Japan is an overly conformist society, but in my brief experience, it was merely harmonious. Japanese people certainly seem to enjoy themselves, and seem comfortable with their place in the world.