Japans Best Kept Secret

Voted by NBC as one of the worlds top 18 best kept secrets Amami Ooshima.

Voted recently in the top BEST KEPT SECRET ISLANDS in the world included our favourite Amami Ooshima.

Here's what they say about Amami.......

AMAMI
For a place that even most Japanese people arent familiar with, Amami Island, about 170 miles south of Japan, packs a punch on the cultural and natural aspects of island adventures. Most of the world doesnt  know much about the southern Japanese islands of the Ryukyu Archipelago, which includes Amami, stretching from Kyushu to Okinawa. Because of Amamis relative isolation, the traditional culture of living harmoniously with nature emanates from all aspects of life on this island where Japan and Polynesia meet. Amamis hills are covered in subtropical forests, and its endemic potpourri has earned the island the nickname Japanese Galapagos. Its coral reefs are on the World Wildlife Funds Global 200 eco-regions list; theres a mysterious and primitive rabbit that exists only on Amami and is classified in Japan as a national monument; and there are rare endemic thrushes, colorful Ryukyu robins, Lidths  jays, Amami woodpeckers and Ryukyu scops owls. Of course, people live here, too, and Amami is world-famous for its kimonos made of pongee silk. Travelers can see them during summer festival-season parades and watch silk artisans practice doro-zome dyeing, a process done primarily on Amami. Plan your trip around the plethora of festivals and traditional dances that rule the islands social calendar. The pageantry and rituals of the Harvest and Yonshi Dance and Yagoro-don effigy festival are rarely seen outside these islands.

For full article, see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11593077/page/3/

Tours Amami Ooshima

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