I'm up in the air about visiting Japan. I'll be arriving in Taipei on March 30th, and returning to the USA on or before May 30th. Japan is right along the flight path, so it makes perfect sense to spend a few weeks there. But it's often cold in late April and early May, my simple leisure lifestyle in Japan would be over double the cost of Southeast Asia, and most of the urban Japanese landscapes look sterile and devoid of life.
Visiting one of the world's highest IQ countries would be worth it, however. Will be interesting to see if my personality, which seems too colorless, intellectual and restrained for the Third World, will thrive in English-speaking social settings in Japan. Of course, when one visits a country where most people are richer and spendier than you are, the social dynamic flips on its head, and one may be perceived as merely another unwanted poorfag foreigner who balks at spending $50 on an evening of drinking.