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This week I move from an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean to an island on the edge of the East China Sea: from Hawaii Big Island to the little island of Yakushima, Southern Japan (195 square miles, population 13,178).

The family that built this house in 1947 still owns the house. We get to rent it for a week, something we’ve been doing every other year since 2010.The house makes for great punctuation in our family’s lives. We get to be with our nephews when they were 1 and 2, then 3 and 4, and now… Continue reading Our (Rented) House on Hawaii Big Island

We keep coming back to this park. There’s trails at sea level, there’s a trail going to almost 14,000 feet to the snow-capped summit of Mauna Loa, and there’s plenty trails in between. On two recent trips, we backpacked to remote areas where we pitched our tent. This time (March 2014) we stayed at the… Continue reading Hawaii Volcanoes National Park 2014

The hotel duty manager warned me: Honoka’a shuts down by 8:00 p.m. That’s why I’m here. It’s time to go out on the town. At night, this old sugar cane town takes on an unfamiliar hue, reminiscent of sepia-toned photographs from a different time.  I wonder what is going on. The sodium street lights seem… Continue reading Honoka’a after Dark

Honoka’a Theater, still operating. There are many Hawaiis. There’s the Hawaii of shiny resort hotels, shopping, and activities for purchase. Then there’s the Hawaii of rusting corrugated iron roofs. And there’s the Hawaii of trails that predate Cook’s first encounter back in 1778. I like to wander through these Hawaiis.I’m currently staying in the little… Continue reading Old Hawaii

Poster on my office wall It’s hard to beat a journey that starts with deicing fluid rumbling onto hollow metal. Before you know it you’re six miles above a perfectly blue Pacific. Then, just as the sun is thinking of setting, you arrive in HNL (Honolulu) to a terminal with walls open to fragrant tropical… Continue reading Castles in the Air

We were riding the Delhi metro when we became aware of dirty looks, and, oddly, all the other passengers were female.  Then it dawned on us we had stumbled into the women-only coach. The fine for this infraction was higher than for riding on the roof, and it was being regularly enforced.  The subway train was moving, we… Continue reading Walking into Forbidden Places

This picture evokes vivid memories. April 2013, I’m underground in Tokyo, in Ikebukuro Station, the second busiest train station in the world with over 2.7 million passengers a day. I never walk up on the surface of Tokyo. I’ve just arrived from Matsuyama on the island of Shikoku, the nether regions of Japan, to catch a train back out of… Continue reading Ikebukuro Station