Category: Asia

Dreaming of Kyushu

This winter I’ll be back in Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands. I will have visited Kyushu three years in a row: 2013, 2014, and 2015. I go back for the gentle subtropical climate while Minnesota’s long winter refuses to budge. Kyushu is a manageable size, about one-sixth the area of Minnesota or… Continue reading Dreaming of Kyushu

Gas

It was breakfast at the Granvia Okayama Hotel. The tour group at the next table murmured in agreement as the colonel railed against typographical errors in the itinerary. I pegged him as “the colonel,” now a paper-pusher, close to retirement.  It was impossible to tune him out as he recalled his first encounter with the… Continue reading Gas

Kyoto 2005

Kyoto, 2005. I’ve posted about temple plumbing here and here.

Categorized as Honshu

Nagasaki/Saint Paul

Nagasaki aesthetics, Como Park, St. Paul, MN. Minneapolis and St. Paul are twins; Nagasaki and St. Paul are sisters. In March 2014, I got to meet St. Paul’s sister. I decided not to stay at the Hotel Saint Paul Nagasaki, its name designed to attract my compatriots. I had not come all this way to… Continue reading Nagasaki/Saint Paul

Glass Houses and Buried Museums

The Farnsworth House A Glass House in Illinois Completed in 1951, the Farnsworth House, near Plano, Illinois, is widely regarded as one of the major architectural achievements of the twentieth century. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe took his belief that “less is more” almost to the limit by designing a steel-framed, glass-walled box. The box floats… Continue reading Glass Houses and Buried Museums

Ignoring Barriers

If I’m on foot or bicycle, chances are I’ll go round barriers like this one. In recent weeks, barriers across trails all over the Twin Cities have become a fact of life. Flooding and fallen trees have made walking and cycling more interesting. That got me thinking about a hike back in April on Sado… Continue reading Ignoring Barriers