It's all okay in Japan now, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Tourism to Japan is down — dramatically down — since March, in the aftermath of one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded. Part of the problem is misconceptions. We traveled the country over eight days in late June and early July, and here’s what we found:

† Japan was not destroyed by that earthquake. In Tokyo, the temples, shrines, restaurants, shops and pachinko parlors are open. In Sendai, which took a pretty good jolt as the city closest to the epicenter, evidence of damage in the central district — and there was some damage — is rare.

† Radiation levels from that damaged nuclear plant near Fukushima, 150 miles from Tokyo, are negligible except around the plant, an area that’s been evacuated.

† Kyoto and Hiroshima, popular tourist destinations, hardly felt the quake.

† While there have been reports of limited amounts of food with elevated levels of radiation reaching consumers (most recently, a small shipment of beef), Japanese food — including that beef as well as raw or cooked fish — is not a health hazard. At least that’s what we’re being told not only by government agencies but by people who handle the food for a living.