Japan has a polarizing effect. On a five-day trip from Toyko to Osaka we are treated to a fascinating mix of people and customs: a women’s diving cooperative, a peaceful bonsai school in the middle of flashy Tokyo, an enterprising master firework maker and two Dutch girls who love to dress up.

Half an hour is all it takes in Tokyo to get from the world’s largest intersection to a green oasis of tranquility. At Shibuya Crossing doors open automatically and we climb into a taxi driven by a woman sporting white gloves and a chauffeur’s cap. Soon we are standing in an inner courtyard amid hundreds of bonsais, overwhelmed by the serenity of the scene. A stream splashes softly into a pond, where koi circle dreamily. Sensei Kunio Kobayashi, 65, pours us green tea. He has been working with bonsai since 1976 and is a grand bonsai master today, teaching the art of shaping bonsai and welcoming visitors from Japan, Italy and Australia almost every day. Some of his students stand absolutely still, firmly gripping their secateurs as they contemplate the fine twigs. Kobayashi has chalked a bonsai consisting of three elements onto a board: a stand, a plant pot and a tree.

Mount Fuji is shrouded in cloud and only its snowy peak is visible. A recorded loudspeaker message brings us a woman’s monotonous warning to “Drive carefully, there have been many accidents recently, drive slowly.” We are sitting outside at a rest stop, spooning noodle soup with mountain vegetables, having left Tokyo via the ring expressway, which is frequently the scene of illegal nighttime races. The countryside is growing hillier, the air fresher, the leaves gleam red-brown in the sunshine. “Kōyō” is what the Japanese call the season when the foliage turns. They celebrate it with a variety of festivals just like they do the season of spring blossoms. Hiroto Kamijoo, 53, makes his living from such festivals. Kneeling in front of a pile of gunpowder balls with his son Rioji, he strikes a match. A loud bang resounds and through a dense swathe of smoke, we see five different colors as five layers of powder burn.

In the morning, we are met by Mikoko Nakajo, landlady of a ryokan at the foot of the Japanese Alps. Her 120-year-old guesthouse draws water via a wooden pipeline from thermal springs located kilometers away in the mountains. “My only fear is that an earthquake could destroy the line,” says Nakajo. Twigs hang from high ceilings, calligraphy adorns the walls and her guests sleep on futons. Automatic, heated lavatory seats and flatscreen televisions are the only nods to the 21st century here. Outside, steam rises from the onsen, hot pools of healing mineral water. Her husband monitors their quality every month. She herself does not particularly like them, says Ms. Nakajo, smiling politely: “Too hot and too many people.” Foreign visitors often extend their stay into a relaxing break; Japanese visitors usually only come for a night.

After breakfasting on fish, we go down to Wajima harbor. A few fishing boats are still coming in, but most of the fleet has already been tied up along the pier and unloaded. The air is filled with the smells of salt and diesel oil, gulls squabble over shrimp scraps, and it’s drizzling. Harue Aochi surveys the sea.

She is an expert at reading the currents; she knows the waves and the wind. Aochi is 62 years old and works literally in the sea all year round. She is one of around 200 amas, the women divers of the Noto Peninsula in the Japanese Sea. There are nearly 1000 divers like her in the country. After the Second World War, very few men returned to Noto and many were no longer able to work. Forced to provide for their families, their wives went fishing or diving for mussels and snails.

Aochi sails out every morning with eight other amas and a captain to one of the islands off the coast. The weather determines where they head. Aochi has been gathering abalone and turban snails from the sea bed for 40 years. Delicacies like that fetch up to 10 000 yen (over 100 dollars) a kilo at the fish market. On a good day, the divers haul between 20 and 30 kilos on board.

We head southwest along the coast, past pagoda villages, rice terraces and rocky beaches. Now and then, we come upon a racing cyclist, but otherwise the streets tend to be deserted. Many Japanese express a longing to return to nature and the simple life in the country, far from the crowds and the fast pace and noise of the city. Not Leyla Cavusoglu from the Netherlands. Cavusoglu, 28, left Europe to live in a Japanese city. “The secondhand stores in Osaka are fantastic,” she says, peeping out from under her false eyelashes. She is looking for new Lolita fashions, a variation on “cosplay,” the costume trend exported from Japan along with the manga boom in the 1990s. “In cosplay, you play a different role, but as Lolita, you keep your own character,” explains Leyla, today in a black-and-red costume. Her friend Danchelle Heijnen, 21, is all dolled up in baby blue and pink, right down to the bow in her hair, in an outfit worth around 1000 euros.