Nestled on a quiet street in Bloomsbury, London, far from the tourist crowds of the Thames and Westminster, there’s a modest Georgian townhouse with black railings, white-framed windows, and red brick walls. It doesn’t shout for attention—but it doesn’t need to. This is the Charles Dickens Museum, the former home of one of England’s greatest storytellers, where fiction met reality and a literary universe was born.

When you think of Japan, your mind probably races to neon-lit cities, cherry blossoms, ancient shrines, or sushi masterpieces. But what if we told you Japan also has a desert? And not just any desert—a place where mirages shimmer across golden dunes like something out of Arabian Nights?