ON THE MONEY

With the world’s fifth-largest economy, Britain has a percapita GDP of £33,803. Japan has the world’s third-largest economy and a per capita GDP of £30,697.

level of detail is almost painful; you enter the tea house room by bending low on your knees and going through what looks like a giant cat-flap to denote humility; before your three sips of frothy matcha tea, you turn the bowl clockwise, twice, so that the face is towards your host. You sniff a bowl of incense three times when it’s passed to you for purification purposes. My mum loses her mind when I put her milk in her mug after the boiling water; this takes tea to a whole new level.

The next day I was back on the train to Kyoto, about an hour north. And this is where I fell in love with old Japan. Kyoto was the capital city between 794 and 1868, before the emperor relocated it to Tokyo, and feels ancient: hundreds of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, whole districts of old-style wooden houses lit by red paper lanterns, a city of geishas. It’s not big, the population is 1.5 million, and it’s a fabulous place for walking. Do not miss the Philosopher’s Path, an hour’s amble from the Ginkaku-ji temple along a little canal down to the Nanzen-ji temple.

Take a guided tour of Gion where, if you’re lucky, you will still see geisha – or their apprentices, maiko, who train for five years – hurrying along, white painted faces down as they try not to be photographed.

Not far from Gion is a sensationally pretty shrine: Yasaka, where my guide explained bowing to me. Your normal, everyday bow should be at an incline of 15 degrees, but you stoop to 40 degrees if you’re being especially respectful. “All my clients ask me, ‘why don’t Japanese people put on weight?’ And I say, ‘because we bow so much’,” she says, laughing. “How many times do you bow each day?” I ask. About 100 times, says Mia.

Kyoto was also where I stayed in Hiiragiya, one of the city’s oldest ryokans, or inns, with tatami matting on the floor, sliding screens for a door and a futon bed. They serve you dinner and breakfast in your room and leave out traditional cotton robes for you to relax in. They even run the bath for you: a big tub made from cedar wood that is run to the brim, so you sit in hot water up

My guide told me forlornly that more and more Japanese are eating toast and jam for breakfast