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…
Turning Old Tokyo into Hiroshima’s Nakajima-honmachi for Kono Sekai TV Drama
Recently I went to rural Tokyo (yes, it has a rural part) to visit Edo-Tokyo Tatemono, the 25 building architectural park that preserves old Tokyo buildings. Its collection includes the homes of Edo era farmers and a prime minister as…
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…
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…
Evangelion and Japanese Swords Exhibition Opens in Sasebo
Bringing together two unique Japanese art forms, anime and traditional sword-making, the Evangelion and Japanese Swords exhibition opened at the Sasebo City Museum Shimanose Art Center on Apr. 13, 2019. This long-running, traveling exhibition has about 20 unique blades created…
Hanami in Hiroshima
Sakura, that quintessentially Japanese flower that blooms but for a short time then fades away on the wind, can draw crowds to even the most humble city park or riverside to enjoy their beauty, but when paired with some of…
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…
A visit to the Nogeyama Zoo
In the hills of Yokohama, not terribly far from the skyscrapers, shopping malls, and night life of Sakuraigicho and Kannai, there is a large hilltop park in a quiet neighborhood called Nogeyama. Large parks in Yokohama are not all that…
Okunoshima: Poison Gas & Bunnies Island
After dragging her through multiple atomic bomb ruined schools and two days of visiting bomb-centric Hiroshima museums I took my lightly traumatized wife to an island full of bunnies to recover. The island had beautiful, natural scenery and uncountable therapeutic…