I just got back from my 17th trip to Japan in recent years. I truly love visiting here and meeting so many amazing folks. Japan is also the number one place for acoustic instruments and over the years I have blogged extensively about many of the amazing stores there.
The transport system is superb, customer service is the best and I have had some brilliant vegetarian food there, which is the last thing I suspected. Of course, Japan also has Takahiro Shimo, the number one ukulele builder on planet earth. His instruments have that extra element that makes them truly magical to play and I now have seven in my collection including the new ukulele reso seen below.
This is a fascinating instrument that sounds as great as it looks and was commissioned two years ago. I’ll be back in 2019.