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This past week I’ve briefly visited the three most easterly national parks on the island of Hokkaido, Japan: Kushiro-Shitsugen, Akan Mashu, and Shiretoko. Kushiro-Shitsugen National Park Kushiro-Shitsugen is Japan’s largest wetland, famous for its Japanese red-head cranes. A JR (Japan Rail) line runs along the edge of the wetlands, with several stops. I decided to… Continue reading Snapshots: Eastern Hokkaido National Parks

September 20, 2018. The view from my seat on the turboprop from Central Hokkaido’s New Chitose Airport summed up my hesitancy to visit Japan’s northernmost island. Below, I could see hills pockmarked by landslides. In some places roads were blocked. I was witnessing effects of Hokkaido’s massive earthquake exactly two weeks earlier. In the early… Continue reading After the Quake

Hawaii Big Island, April 2009. My partner and I hiked across lava. A map on our GPS guided us along the invisible lines of streets buried beneath us. A school bus, trapped by lava, reminded us this is a disaster site where homes had once stood. Disaster Tourism can be distasteful. I think of people… Continue reading Disaster Tourism

I’ve just received a message from the the Air Terminal Hotel at Sapporo’s New Chitose Airport, the main airport for Hokkaido, Japan: I had been expecting the message, as there was a similar announcement at the hotel’s Web site.  As instructed, I went ahead and cancelled my reservation at the Air Terminal Hotel for next week.… Continue reading In the Event of an Earthquake…

I spotted the machine pictured at the top of this post earlier this week. It looks a little cheaply built for a medical body scanner, but that was my first assumption. I’ve met medical imaging systems of many shapes and sizes in recent times. It’s not in the same league as this beauty I snapped… Continue reading A Man in a Machine

Less than a half mile from our home, across the Mississippi, there’s a small park I had never visited until last week. Steps make it inadvisable to cycle through the park, so I promised myself I would wait until a rainy day to walk through this park, Father Hennepin Bluff Park. Last Friday was that… Continue reading Deluge at Father Hennepin Bluff Park

I spotted this today when cycling across the Mississippi on the 3rd Avenue bridge, heading towards downtown Minneapolis. A horizontal frame was protruding from the back of a road construction truck. A rather agile cherry picker on another truck was conveying workers to the underside of the bridge. I cycled to connect with a path… Continue reading Frame Protruding from Back of Truck

Gold Medal Park fits a lot of personality into its compact 7.5 acres in the Minneapolis Mill District. We get to see it every day from our temporary home while our condo is being completed next door. The park, with a mound, with a spiral path, is now a permanent fixture in our lives.