I wanted to take a quick moment to showcase the Cool Winter Japan 2008 tour's Japan Experience day for a moment. Participants will spend the afternoon receiving a personalized taiko drum experience tour. After a jaunt through a taiko museum and a brief talk about the history of this awesome percussion instrument, everyone will get to have hands-on time pounding out the thunderous sounds of the taiko drum. After working up a sweat, the group will take a guide walk through Asakusa to visit the area's temples and shrines. Can't wait! Here's some footage of taiko drumming in action.

Very recently, we were alerted to a pretty bad typo on our site. The 2008 Tokyo Anime Freedom tour's return flight schedule originally was posted as arriving at LAX at 12:50 AM, which is still pretty much the middle of the night. It's been altered to show the CORRECT arrival time of 12:50 PM, when you might be sitting down to a nice bowl of ramen for lunch. Those of you who were worried about getting back into LAX in the middle of the night can rest easy now. Thanks for pointing that out, Michelle!

The 2008 Tokyo Anime Freedom tour's 1st-day optional tour sightseeing itinerary has been finalized. Participants will get to check out Asakusa for a taste of old Japan, as well as stop by the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. Then the group will head to the Meiji Shrine to take a moment in the tranquil oasis of the grounds buried within the megalopolis of Tokyo. Our stop after that will be the brand-new Tokyo Midtown - a marvel of modern architecture and design, filled with gourmet restaurants and shops each with their own futuristic atmosphere. Last, we'll hop over to the Roppongi Hills Tokyo City View observatory. Check out this awesome view. (click the 360 button in the top left)

Some of you may be sitting on the fence about the 2008 Tokyo Anime Freedom tour. We understand - some of you might just think 5 nights in Tokyo on a tour that takes you shopping in the anime/game holy land of Akihabara, to the modern fashion-centric streets of Harajuku and Shibuya, and to the Tokyo Anime Fair, as well as a two-day optional tour that takes you sightseeing all over the city and then on a special Experience Japan tour might be TOO GOOD of a deal. Well, deciding to sign up before January 24th will save you $50 on the optional tour. The price was scheduled to go up back in December, but we wanted to extend the deal and save some more people some money. That's an extra $50 of spending money, but only if you act fast! Sign up soon!

Some of you may have seen pictures of snow sculptures on display at some of the past Sapporo Snow Festivals. Well, those things take about a month or so to finish constructing, which means this year's sculptures are already under way! Over at the Japanese Sapporo Snow Festival website, you can check out sketches of this year's snow sculpture designs, and by clicking on each design you can see each day's progress all the way up to completion. You can check out the pics by clicking >here<.

As I'm sure you're aware, Destination Japan's 2008 Cool Winter Japan tour will be going to the Sapporo Snow Festival, and I'm extremely excited not just because the tour will be awesome, but because this year they're going to have another sculpture of a Japanese castle: Inuyama-Jo. Why is that so exciting? Because snow sculptures of castles always turn out looking incredible.

Some of you may already be familiar with BangZoom! Entertainment's anime review video podcast AnimeTV. Destination Japan recently had the pleasure of working with the staff and as a first step in an exciting direction, we placed an ad in the latest episode of AnimeTV. You can watch the vid below (note: you'll need the Quicktime plug-in), or over at the Anime TV Website. Anime TV... GO!

Be sure to catch the rest of the Anime TV episodes, too! We're very happy and excited about our friendship with the folks over at BangZoom! and Anime TV. I can't say anything yet, but some really exciting news is on the way!

Destination Japan's February tour will be taking flight this February 2nd. Participants will be traveling to Japan to spend 5 nights in Tokyo and enjoy sightseeing, shopping, and non-stop one-of-a-kind Japan experiences. Also on the to-do list is a trip up to Sapporo to see the world-famous Snow Festival. Nothing short of a Godzilla attack is going to keep this tour from going now! (Actually, on second thought, that'd just be more of a reason to go.)

Watch for more updates on the tour when it sets sail!