Box Without Walls

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In a temple garden

My first impressions of Japan were: incomprehensible (Tokyo); and green and serene (Kyoto). I was about 14 years old at the time, and I was travelling with my family on a roundabout route to visit my dad’s family in New Zealand. I also remember not caring much for the food. So much has changed since then!

During my recent visit to Japan, I was curious whether my initial “green and serene” impression of Kyoto would match my perception as an adult, more than 40 years later. We arrived in Kyoto a couple of days after our visit with the monkeys in the snowy mountains and it was definitely a lot greener and warmer.… READ MORE

Visiting the snow monkeys

While I love and enjoy nature, and make quite a few nature and landscape images, I am not particularly a “nature photographer”. I don’t have a super-long telephoto to take pictures of wildlife, or a macro lens so I can get close to insects or flowers. So I will admit that snow monkeys were not on my top 10 list of things I wanted to see in Japan. But they won me over anyway!

It helped that the mountain scenery was so beautiful, the snow was falling so softly (and sometimes thickly), the trail we followed was so quiet in the early morning.… READ MORE

Shibu Onsen: a hot-spring getaway

The ryokan that inspired the anime classic “Spirited Away”.
A warmly garbed guardian, and a hot springs stream coming down from the mountain.

As part of our tour in Japan, we travelled to Nagano Prefecture to visit the traditional hot-spring town of Shibu Onsen. The historic section of this town features picturesque narrow streets, a series of nine public hot-spring baths (onsen) and traditional inns (ryokan), some of which date back 400 years. The town is located in the mountains, so there was snow and the weather was chilly!

The narrow main street in the historic part of town.

When we arrived in mid-afternoon, it was too early to check-in at our ryokan (the friendly Sakaeya Inn), so we left our bags and wandered the town, marvelling at all the architectural and cultural details.… READ MORE

A taste of Japan

Diner on the inside, me on the outside.
Sushi chef at work. Looks like a fun job!
Octopus & friends.

When I travelled in to Japan, one thing that totally surprised me was the food. When it comes to food, and so much else, Japan seems to have taken the best of what the world offers and improved on it. Do you like milkshakes? Then you will enjoy the heavenly Sakura shake, a cherry-flavoured frozen custard delight. Do you like pancakes? Then you might completely bliss out when you try Okonomiyaki, which can have many different ingredients. Do you like street food?… READ MORE

Tokyo on the move

Tokyo is a big city. In fact, it’s the largest city in the world, although Delhi is expected to surpass it over the next decade. The city is so spread out that it has 18 subway/train lines, plus the famous Shinkansen, linking the cities at super-fast speeds. So I’ve been trying to figure out how to describe the complexity and chaos of this crowded city.

The first thing I need to say is that there rarely seems to be chaos. As you can imagine, it can be quite overwhelming for first-time visitors, as we stumble our way way through the maze of streets and railway platforms.… READ MORE

Impressions of Japan

My photo tour finished up yesterday, and I have thousands and photos and memories and things I could say about this fascinating country. In the past week, I have seen a tiny bit of Tokyo, stayed in two traditional Ryokan (inns), walked an icy mountain path to see snow monkeys, and travelled on numerous trains through cities and countryside. And I’ve eaten — oh I could do a whole post on the food alone, what a dining experience this has been!

At the moment, I am staying in Tokyo for an additional three nights so I can explore some more of the city on my own, so the adventure continues.… READ MORE

Preparing for Japan

Trying out my travel ensemble, including my new camera daypack. Savvy, our cuddle corgi, is not going to Japan.

Konnichi wa! For the past six months, I have been thinking about my upcoming trip to Japan. And I have been shopping, so this post is as much about stuff as sights. I leave in three days and I am ready!

One of the first things I wanted to do was learn a few words of Japanese, so I could say hello and thank you. Before we went to Cuba last spring, I studied Spanish and discovered that having a teeny tiny grasp of the language was really helpful!… READ MORE