Category: Honshu

Iterative Travel

I don’t do bucket lists. If a place intriques me, I want to return. I reduce the pressure to do and see everything on a trip by telling myself it’s only a prototype. It’s sufficient to experience enough to whet my appetite for the next iteration, er, I mean visit. Just as well I held… Continue reading Iterative Travel

Happy Places

Happy place. A memory, situation, or activity that makes you feel happy. Cambridge Dictionary. November 2019. I’m on a nonstop Delta flight from Seoul ICN to Minneapolis MSP on a brand new Airbus A350. I’m contented, sipping wine, snacking on nuts, and anticipating the Korean dinner I’ve preordered. I look out the window and see… Continue reading Happy Places

Cycling the Inland Sea

Took a ferry from Onomichi, where we’re staying in a “bicycle hotel,” to Ikuchi Island in the Seto Inland Sea. Rented bikes, then cycled back across islands and bridges (including the one in the photo), and past a children’s playground.

Bicycle-Friendly Hotel

Last night we slept in a museum designed by starchitect Tadao Ando on Naoshima Island. Tonight we sleep in a bicycle-friendly hotel in a former warehouse on a wharf in Onomichi. There’s a bike hanger in each room for those with bicycle separation anxiety.

Frank Lloyd Wright in Japan

It was rainy, a good day to change plans and ride a bullet train for 230 miles to visit Meiji Mura, an architecture museum. After coffee in the lobby of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Tokyo Imperial Hotel, we explored many of the 60 buildings. We then rode a bullet back.

Blue Tarps in a Park

The homeless at [Tokyo’s] Ueno Park were up early Monday, with hundreds of the park dwellers quietly disassembling their tents and packing their belongings onto carts soon after dawn. Pushing carts laden with their possessions, they plodded toward a small empty plot hidden by bushes and trees. Around 9:40 a.m., about two hours after completing… Continue reading Blue Tarps in a Park

A Crosswalk in Nagano

One Monday afternoon in April 2016 I got to see something which, once seen, has been impossible to un-see. I’m standing at a crosswalk in Nagano, Japan, reading a ditty on the back of a man’s shirt: Indian Boys, Indian Boys, Oh how I love those Indian Boys The image of an American Indian dreamcatcher… Continue reading A Crosswalk in Nagano

Snapshots: 1,000 Miles by Train to Tokyo

September 2018. I had spent the previous week exploring the three national parks in eastern Hokkaido. It was now time to figure out how to chunk a journey to Tokyo over the next 10 days. I had flown to eastern Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost main island. The journey back to Tokyo would be slower. Armed with… Continue reading Snapshots: 1,000 Miles by Train to Tokyo