This has all been very interesting. I have learnt things about Japan that I had NO idea about. I think I should put in my two cents now.
One thing: Certain things are very irrelevant, and answers will change for the individual preferences. I have no reason to see how weather would say anything positive or negative about a country. People are ALL over the planet- from tropical to sandy deserts to deserts of ice, and people have survived fine all these years, so yeah, no need to complain about the weather- Land plants and water animals/plants need water to survive! (duh)
Also there was a comment about gray buildings in Japan. Gray gloomy buildings are in many cities and Japan may have some, but it also has many beautiful buildings. I much admire their amazing ancient craft of architecture. Although this link does not have many old buildings some of the new buildings are interesting. check it out!:
http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/ci/?id=100297 and check the icon "Images" to see some neat pics. Of course cities always look scary with their many people and high buildings, but around the world many amazing buildings have been built.
This building from Tokyo is amazing, check it!:
http://www.emporis.com/en/il/im/?id=233474 To find it: Go to the first link and click on the buildings Icon, then the famous buildings link to find a page of interesting buildings.
Also for those of us who LOVE graffiti you can visit some Japan Tokyo graffiti at:
http://homepage3.nifty.com/Graffiti/ Sorry, this link seems broken, I will update when I can find out a way to get it to work. If you click on "what's new", then try clicking back and forth enough- it works eventually!
I love picturesque Japan- that is I love the traditional culture, the clothing, food, the language, the celebrations. Much of Japans history is quite fascinating, especially if you read some of the myths such as- The floating world, or Izanami and Izanagi, or World without sun.
But the new Japan has some amazing contributes, along with some sad decisions- Just like in many parts of the world, at this time.
Years ago, China gave the Western world (Europe/Britain) Paper, writing and gun powder but in these last few decades Japan has opened up to present us with Anime, Video gaming, and superior technology. It can attribute much more then that, just as China has much more to share then paper, but only Japan came up with its unique animation style that captivates many, its supreme technologies that spawned Video Gaming, and the Japanese Cities contain some of the most brilliantly built transportation the world has seen.
A person can go to the Japanese Temples and absorb the life of the monks, then switch to a completely different lifestyle just by going into one of the cities and amercing ones self with anime, lots of bright lights, and video games, then one can go see another side of Japan and hit a Karaoke house. So it seems like many unique forms of life gets expressed in Japan.
(some of you may be thinking that Video games are bad news, but really many games are very impressive like: For the older gaming days; games like the bubble bobble series, to the newer games such as the Chrono trigger series or the Seiken Densetsu series (Secret/Legend of Mana.) Or puzzle games like Magical drop! So yeah, many Japanese Video games are amazing and fun and stimulate the mind and lift the spirits.) (Of course having a beautiful untouched place on this planet to go and honour and appreciate is VERY important, so lets not all get glued to the screen, be it TV or video game, and go outside and enjoy and help preserve nature!)
With a country filled with so much diversity you really wonder where this brilliance comes from. I think if you study its ancient past- you can uncover its mysterious now, and maybe realize its grate potential for the future.
-Over and out