Sharing favorite finds from across the archipelago
It's rainy season this month in Japan, which means that part of me wants to stay in my house curled up on my couch with a book, while the other part of me wants to take advantage of the lack of humidity and go out exploring. Luckily, this past weekend was a bit of a... Continue Reading →
Kurashiki is a lovely canal town in Okayama Prefecture that doesn't always get the press it deserves. It has a beautiful neighborhood (the Bikan district) of old rice storehouses that have now been converted to shops, museums, restaurants and comfortable ryokan (traditional inns). Boats drift lazily down the central canal while willows on the bank... Continue Reading →
I'll close out the run of posts on Nagasaki with the city's manhole cover. Nagasaki is known for a number of things - its trade ties, its mix of culinary styles, its sad history as a target of the second atomic bomb. And yet here is what the drain cover looks like: That's right. Hydrangea.... Continue Reading →
I was excited to catch a unique manhole cover like Gero Onsen on my trip through central Japan this past fall. I'd been in Takayama before but had never bothered looking down at my feet and was oddly excited to see what the city might be sporting on its sewer drains. (No, I never thought... Continue Reading →
Fifty minutes south of central Tokyo lies one of my favorite places in Japan. In truth, there's a host of things that could bring you to the town of Kamakura - the Daibustsu (Big Buddha), the second largest Buddha statue in Japan; the beautiful pageantry of archers on horseback at the Hachiman Shrine's autumn festival; the hiking... Continue Reading →
For most of Japan, June is the rainy season. But with the seasonal showers come the indigo blooms of irises. My favorite color being purple, I'm rather partial to these delicate flowers. There are plenty of places around Japan where one can catch a glimpse of irises in bloom but one of the best I... Continue Reading →
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