If you've ever considered visiting Japan or are simply interested in Japanese culture, you'll want to catch a new show by William Jans. The Vancouver-based professional photographer has a knack for meeting people on the road and an eye for the zany, absurd, and downright hilarious. 

He also has a passion for sharing his travel adventures, and his new show, A Man, a Plan, Japan, debuts in Vancouver on April 17.

"It's less temples and gardens and more abandoned amusement parks," he tells the Straight with a laugh in a phone interview.

Anyone who has seen Jans's previous shows knows that his travels are always out of the ordinary. For over 20 years, he’s been periodically staging what he calls “live multimedia extravaganzas” and has had 15 sold-out shows (with over 850 people per night in Vancouver).

The evenings are a fast-paced mix of awe-inspiring photographs, video and audio clips, audience participation, and belly laughs.

This show is based on the two months he spent in spring 2014 exporing Japan from top to bottom. (During the first week there, Jans actually broke his foot, but hobbled on nonetheless.) Travelling on a Japan Rail Pass and staying in hostels, he went everywhere from Kagoshima to Hokkaido, stopping in Tokyo and places in between. He also flew to tropical Okinawa.

His tales include squeezing himself through Daibutsu's nostril at Nara's Todaiji temple, sleeping in a capsule hotel, hanging out with the Rockability dancers in Tokyo, and attending Kanamara Matsuri, otherwise known as "the penis festival" in Kawasaki.

On a more somber note, Jans visited an organic farm in Fukushima and had tea with the locals, which he recalls as "an intense and powerful experience".

On the same trip, Jans spent two weeks in Hunan, China, and the show covers his travels there, too.

A Man, a Plan, Japan premieres Friday, April 17 at John Oliver School Theatre (530 East 41st Avenue; doors open at 7:30 p.m. for an 8 p.m. show). There are also Japan shows in Squamish on Thursday, April 16 and in Surrey on Thursday, April 23.

An encore performance of a show based on another trip, Off the Wall in China, runs on May 1 in Vancouver at John Oliver School Theatre.

See wrjphoto.com for all tickets and info.