You Went to Tokyo? Why Didn’t You Say So?

Sincerest apologies for the delay in (finally) posting photos from Tokyo, but it’s been a hectic month and I kept unconsciously typing “Expedia.com” into my browser each time I flipped through them. I did talk about my visit to Union Square Tokyo a while back, so you can find all that good stuff there. The weather was rather poor while we were in Tokyo — it was usually either raining or overcast, and our plans to double-back at the end of the trip were nixed — so I have pithy few photographs of this extraordinary city. I guess (Oh well, guess I’ll have to go back!) More »

The Sights and Flavors of Miyajima and the Floating Shrine

After exploring Hiroshima a little and checking out the Peace Memorial Museum and Park, we hopped on a ferry to the nearby island of Itsukushima (厳島). Itsukushima is a small island in the western part of the Seto Inland Sea, just northwest of Hiroshima Bay and popularly known as Miyajima (宮島), the “Shrine Island.”

The island is so named because of the Itsukushima Shrine, yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site and home of the famous floating Torii gates (which also happen to be commonly renowned as one of Japan’s three most beautiful views). In addition to the floating shrine (when the water rises during high tide, the massive vermillion Torii gates and the shrine appear to float on the water), the island is also famous for its maple trees, azuki jam-filled pastries, wild Sika deer, oysters, religious significance, and as a luxury ryokan destination. More »

A Shikoku Detour, a Ride on the Bullet Train, and the Tastiest Pancakes in All of Japan

So, clearly I’m a little behind on the updates, but yes, I am still alive. We left Kyoto on June 4th and have been traveling pretty much nonstop since (with extremely limited Internet access — in fact, I don’t even have Internet access now; I’m writing this from a ferry back to Kagoshima from Yakushima so I can post it whenever I finally do get online).

In any case, it’s now been just over a week since we left Kyoto, so I’ll try to do a quick recap to bring us up to speed. In the meantime, please forgive the cheesy photo of my iPod against a window taken from my seat on a train. Unless you work for Apple’s marketing division and are hiring, in which case: please let me know where to forward my resumé. More »

One Fish, Two Fish; Big Fish, Fugu Fish

So we’re getting a little out of order here — today is Day 16, it’s our last day in Kyoto (and the Kansai region); we actually arrived in Kyoto last Friday and have spent a full week here, split between four days in Kyoto three days set aside for day trips to Nara, Osaka, and Kobe. Tomorrow we’ll leave for Hiroshima (with a quick detour across the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge and  through Shikoku to see the tidal whirlpools in the Naruto Strait), spend two days there, and begin our descent through Kyushu and towards Okinawa.

I’ve already written about Nara and Kobe, so I’ll do a quick recap of Osaka — including the aquarium, how I ate poisonous sushi, and Japan’s favorite street food — here and follow-up with a full Kyoto recap on the train tomorrow. More »

Kobe Beef in Kobe City, Holy Cow!

Ah, Kobe. The sixth-largest city in Japan and capital of the Hyogo Prefecture, Kobe is about 74 km southwest of Kyoto. The city is notable for a couple of reasons: mainly that it was one of the earliest Japanese cities to open for trade with the West after Japan came out of seclusion, the major damage it suffered during the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, and perhaps most famously — its beef. More »