A weekend getaway can mean packing the family into the car and hitting road for destination away from the every day. As you drive through the countryside trains running parallel occasionally shoot by- the local commuter with school children and…
Nostalgic Romance in Kitakyushu
I checked my Seikosha pocket watch, drawing it as close as the watch chain holding it to my waist coat would allow. It wasn’t unexpected, but she was late. It was mid-day on the Mojiko Station square and the sun…
Travel to Mid-Century Japan at Showa no Machi
(Our visit to Showa no Machi was partially covered here in article about Kids on the Slope movie filming locations.) Time travel is a distinct possibility in Japan; throughout the country neighborhoods or districts are preserved like time capsules of…
Free Day at Tokyo Station
Tokyo station is the starting point for visits to many of Tokyo’s great sights, but the historic station itself is also a destination to appreciate that doesn’t cost a thing to see. And for those looking to see Tokyo on…
Summertime in Japan’s International City of the North: Hakodate
While I don’t mind some snow or cold, warm days are the best for enjoying historic cities with lots of walking and outdoor sights. Considering how hot and humid it was already getting in subtropical Kyushu, early summer was the…
Hokkaido’s Pioneer Village: Kaitaku no Mura (Historic Village of Hokkaido)
Hidden in the trees just outside Sapporo is a frontier town surrounded by farms and a fishing village. These 52 buildings are not a functioning town but rather an architectural open-air museum that tells the story of Hokkaido’s pioneering past:…
Walking Yokohama’s Foreign Quarter
In 1854, Commodore Matthew Perry sat down with representatives of the Tokugawa Shogunate on a flat stretch of coastal land near a sleepy little fishing village called Yokohama. The Treaty of Peace and Amity agreed on at this meeting…
Where the Rails Met the Sea: Otaru
It had taken nearly seven hours but we made it. The first express train took us from Abashiri on Hokkaido’s far northern coast through five hours of its national park-like interior of forests and plains, or at least that’s what…
Unzen Kanoukaen: Samurai and Sakura Blossoms by Torchlight
Hundred of burning torches moved as a river of flames advancing through the black near-moonless night. Under glowing torchlight a hundred samurai in full armor, sword at the hip, their faces and armor illuminated by only their burning fires proceeded…
Ryukoji – Buddhist History in Fujisawa
If you travel to Katase-Enoshima station, near the beaches in southern Fujisawa, you might see the top of a pagoda peaking above the trees on a nearby hillside. Ryukoji is not a large temple, especially compared to the sprawling…