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 »

Kyoto: The Japanese City of Shrines and Monkeys

So to backtrack just a bit, let’s talk about Kyoto. Kyoto was actually our “home base” of sorts after we left Mt. Fuji (and before Hiroshima). We spent a few days exploring Kyoto, Japan’s former capital, and all of our day trips to Nara, Osaka, and Kobe were actually done from here.

One of the first impressions you get from Kyoto is that it’s certainly calmer and more laid-back than Tokyo. The buildings don’t rise as high; there are fewer hordes of men in business suits; and the city’s many shrines, Buddhist temples, and kimono-clad women make it easy to see why Kyoto’s developed the reputation as the center of traditional Japanese culture. 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 »

Paper Cranes and the Hiroshima Peace Park

One thing that bothered me during my first two weeks in Japan was how much writing — or lack thereof, rather — I was doing. Especially compared to my travel companions, both of whom seemed to fill pages and pages of their notebooks with thoughts and introspection during our long train rides through the Japanese countryside. Granted, I was probably less stressed than my cohorts, and I was so distracted by the sights around us that I didn’t feel like I had much time for introspection or soul-searching, but still it was troubling to seem so unaffected.

Until we reached Hiroshima, anyway. 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 »