It’s 1854. Commodore Matthew Perry has just sailed his black ships into Tokyo bay and forced the Tokugawa Shogunate to open Japan to foreign trade for the first time in more than 200 years. The sudden appearance of…
Hiroshima Survivors IV: Hiroshima Museum of History and Traditional Crafts
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…
Hiroshima Survivors III: Old Bank of Japan Hiroshima Branch
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…
Hiroshima Survivors II: Fukuro-machi Elementary School
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?…
Hiroshima Survivors I: Honkawa Elementary School
The A-Bomb Dome is an iconic ruin and solemn reminder of Aug. 6, 1945. Seemingly a lone holdout from another time, it’s surrounded by tall, modern buildings and across from it is a serene park dedicated to peace. It feels…
Forgotten History in Ofuna
I was digging through old photos last week and I stumbled on some shots I snapped back in 2015 of a large, but rather unremarkable temple in nearby Ofuna. I visited with a friend on a dull summer day,…
The Base Beyond the Gates: Walking the former Sasebo Chinjufu
One of the things I like the most about living in Sasebo is that its naval history surrounds me and is accessible on a scale I haven’t seen at the other former Imperial Japanese Navy port cities. (Kure comes close…
It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere: Churchill War Rooms
(I apologize for the image quality in this story. These images were taken in 2013, before I got my current camera.) “It’s five o’clock somewhere,” may have been Sir Winston Churchill state of mind 24-7 but in the Churchill War…
In This Corner of the World Movie Review
I knew I was going to like this film just a few minutes into it. There’s a scene in the opening of our protagonist as a young girl looking through a telescope at a beautiful hall with a green dome…
Remains of the past – Fujisawa Airfield
Mr. Krigbaum often writes about WWII ruins and the remains of wartime facilities down where he lives in Kyushu. Today, it is my turn to write about the remains of a wartime facility not far from where I live in…