Whenever someone announces they are heading to Japan for the first time, most of us can probably list their itinerary before they have even booked their hotel – that’s just how familiar we Singaporeans are with the Land of the Rising Sun.

There will be the obligatory photo at the Shibuya Scramble pedestrian crossing in Tokyo, the temple-hopping marathon through Kyoto’s Higashiyama district and the Osaka street-food crawl along Dotonbori, capped off with a sizzling okonomiyaki.