I hate Mondays. Not because it’s the beginning of the work week or a fat cat told me to, but because almost all the museums are closed. So with nowhere to go indoors and rain making the outdoors unpleasant, it…

I hate Mondays. Not because it’s the beginning of the work week or a fat cat told me to, but because almost all the museums are closed. So with nowhere to go indoors and rain making the outdoors unpleasant, it…
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…
This story begins not with a prison but a road. Hokkaido is Japan’s Alaska and Old West combined. In the 1800s this massive, harsh land was sparsely populated and rich in resources waiting to be exploited. Japan needed pioneers to…
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…
Lately it seems that I’m being pulled more and more into the historical aspects of photography. I don’t mean photographing history, we’ve always done that here. I mean diving into old photos, old methods, and even a Meiji Period…
In a corner of Meiji University’s Ikuta campus sits a small drab building. Well-maintained and completely non-descript it could be another classroom tucked away from the campus’ other towering facility. The only unusual thing about it is a large sign…
If you’ve been following our Facebook, you’ve seen that Mr. Krigbaum and I met up in Inuyama, a small city on the border with Aichi and Gifu Prefectures for several days of museum goodness. David wanted to hit Meiji-Mura, the…
There’s something about turn of the century red brick buildings that excite me. I’m not sure if it’s the color, styling or the history, maybe it’s all of them but when I see one I have to check it out…
Old banks are urban fortresses. Solidly built and intended to protect valuables, their designs make them the next best thing to an actual bunker for surviving a bomb- even atomic ones at close range. Uheiji Nagano didn’t have bombs…
Cell phones make life easy. In an emergency I can call my family and tell them if I’m okay and where I’m at. If I need to find someone I can call them. But what if I didn’t have that?…