One of the biggest challenges for the travel agency at Japan Travel is to find places for our luxury clients to stay and memorable things for them to do. It's because of Japan's obsession with with promoting the concept of everyone being middle class.

Given the fact that nature has the blossoms come when they feel like it, I truly feel sorry for the many thousands of people who arrived in Japan last week, only to find that the prime spots were already done and gone.

Of the 20+ major European travel agencies that I personally went to visit at ITB (Internationale Tourismus-Börse Berlin), probably 15 of them said they wanted to be in Japan, soon.

I'm happy to announce that in fact the service is now up and running. If you go to japantravel.bike, you can rent a bike from any DBS bike port in Japan, with nothing more than a credit card.