Turkey, Australia, and Japan are three of my top destinations.
The United States is broke — fiscally, morally, intellectually — and the Fed has incited a global currency war (Japan just signed up, the Brazilians and Chinese are angry, and the German-dominated euro zone is crumbling) that will soon overwhelm it. When the latest bubble pops, there will be nothing to stop the collapse. If this sounds like advice to get out of the markets and hide out in cash, it is.
World War Two was a world war in space. It spread from Europe to Japan, to the Soviet Union, etc. World War Two was quite different from World War One which was geographically limited to Europe. But in the case of the Gulf War, we are dealing with a war which is extremely local in space, but global in time, since it is the first 'live' war.
Japan's diplomatic efforts could have had a broader international perspective. Relations with the U. S. are, of course, the cornerstone of Japan's diplomacy, but the U. S. acts on its global strategy. For instance, Washington suddenly got closer to China in the early 1970s as part of its strategy against the Soviet Union.
There are some ghost stories in Japan where - when you are sitting in the bathroom in the traditional style of the Japanese toilet - a hand is actually starting to grab you from beneath. It's a very scary story.
The biggest trading partner of the United States is not West Germany or Japan, it's right here.
Japan is the most intoxicating place for me. In Kyoto, there's an inn called the Tawaraya which is quite extraordinary. The Japanese culture fascinates me: the food, the dress, the manners and the traditions. It's the travel experience that has moved me the most.
Whatever happens in the country, whatever warfare harasses our land, we will never relinquish our hold on Western learning. As long as this school of ours stands, Japan remains a civilized nation of the world.
To combat the confusion and depression that assault me when I come off the road in the middle of a tour, I seek the most oblivionated music possible. When it's the 'way out there' that I seek, I go right to my stash of amazing music from Japan.
If a movie is nominated for, say, an Academy award, that movie will instantly become popular in Japan. There's always been a bit of a complex the Japanese have about being taken seriously in the West.
The first comfort women didn't actually come forward until 1992, and since then, the issue has really been kicked up. Japan issued a 1993 acknowledgement on this. It's called the Kono Agreement. But in recent years, South Korea has been wanting an apology to go much further.
It's a lesser-known story, but the Japanese government (after the Russian-Nazi pact, which split Poland) did allow Polish Jews to come to Japan, with the expectation that they would then be sent to the United States. But they weren't accepted, so they stayed in Japan.
In Japan, they have TV sets in cars right now, where you can punch up traffic routes, weather, everything! You can get Internet access already in cars in Japan, so within the next 2 to 3 years it's gonna be so crazy!
I love going somewhere like Japan where you can't understand a word of the advertising - you just see it for its aesthetic beauty, without feeling that you're being sold something.
The perks of working in Japan are that you might go for two weeks every three or four months, so you do work an abbreviated schedule. But you really make up for the abbreviated schedule by how hard you have to fight, how much you've got to be in shape.
It has nothing to do with any kind of exchange or sale [of Kuril island to Japan]. It is about the search for a solution when neither party would be at a disadvantage, when neither party would perceive itself as conquered or defeated.
You have to be able to negotiate our trade deals. You have to be able to negotiate, that's right, with Japan, with Saudi Arabia.
I like most of the places I've been to, but I've never really wanted to go to Japan, simply because I don't really like eating fish, and I know that's very popular out there in Africa, but the whole thing just doesn't appeal to me.
Japan is an important ally of ours. Japan and the United States of the Western industrialized capacity, 60 percent of the GNP, two countries. That's a statement in and of itself.
It doesn't worry me a bit that China and Japan hold so much US debt. In a way, it seems foolish for them to do it because they get lower returns than they might elsewhere. But that is their business.