Paul Hollywood begins his culinary and cultural road trip across Japan in Tokyo, where he experiences solo dining and karaoke, and goes on a karting tour dressed as a ninja turtle.

The baker visits one of the world's smallest restaurants in Hiroshima, where he gets a memorable cookery lesson from a survivor of the atomic bomb, and attends a rice festival in the snowy north of the country where local people fight with six-metre-long bamboo sticks to determine if they will get a good harvest. He also samples the buffet on a bullet train, discovers why Okinawa is embracing American fast food, and visits the ancient capital of Kyoto, where he attempts to develop a taste for tofu.