Tokyo is a place constantly in change. Buildings rise and fall, little is sacred, but if you want to see a little bit of that Old Tokyo that’s mostly escaped us and learn about the great city’s past in…

Tokyo is a place constantly in change. Buildings rise and fall, little is sacred, but if you want to see a little bit of that Old Tokyo that’s mostly escaped us and learn about the great city’s past in…
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…
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…
Think back to when you were young. Did you ever go, perhaps with family or as a school trip, to visit a school from a previous era? I can think of a few times when I was a kid that…
It was a period of rapid change. Men and women walked in kimono and haikara (high-collar) Western fashions on noisy streets of horses and rail-riding street cars hemmed in by wooden Japanese merchant shops and the latest in English architecture.…
We’re coming upon August, when Japanese people move as one to enjoy the sights of the country in the five minutes of vacation time they have each year. This means crowded roads leading to even more tourist-infested destinations full of…
The other day after a whirlwind weekend of sakura planting, reenacting and touring the greater Maizuru area I decided that before starting the long trip back to Sasebo I needed to take a break. Get some country air and have…
Liepaja, Latvia, is the home of extremes in architecture from the beautiful late 19th century downtown to its dead, both artistically and habitably, Soviet blocks (or is it blocs?). During my visit in 2014 I didn’t get a chance to…