About 45 minutes northwest of Sapporo by train is the small port town of Otaru. About 100 years ago it became a point of trade for Hokkaido with Russia and the United States, the easternmost part of Russia being just across the Sea of Japan. Due to this very practical reason several western style warehouses […]
Now it’s time to go to Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan and largest prefecture. It has a culture all of its own, one of myth, of legend and, of course, delicious food. I took the recently opened shinkansen that connects the main island of Honshu to Hokkaido under the straight of Tsugaru. From Tokyo […]
After a few weeks of Kyoto photos, including a whole post just on the station, I realized I still had so much more to share. As this truly special city will do when visited in person, it kept me lingering on it just a little bit longer. From the station there is the roof of […]
There are many temples and shrines in Kyoto, so many so it’s hard to choose which to go to and easy to get “templed-out,” where you go to so many temples and shrines in a short period they all start to blur together. Even still, some massive temples can sneak up on you like Higashi […]