The Kingdom in the Clouds. The Happiest Country in the World. The Last Shangri-la. Mystical. Magical. What a fascinating country. Bhutan is a (virtually completely) mountainous country roughly equal in … Read More
Springtime in Kyoto – what a magical way to end our time in Japan. From the pictures we’ve seen, the only thing that can compare is possibly ‘Autumn in Kyoto’. … Read More
Here are a few of our observations, based on our very short first visit to Japan: To our outsider eyes, Japan is an unusually homogenous country, due in part to … Read More
One of the things we’ve discovered about Japan is that it would be very hard to understand Japan today without understanding a bit about its long and unique history and … Read More
Kyoto must be considered one of the world’s cultural and historic treasure troves. With 17 World Heritage Sites, more than 1600 Buddhist temples and 400 Shinto shrines, Kyoto has been … Read More
“Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T. It … Read More
We arrived in Hiroshima after a long day of train travel, and checked into the Sheraton Hotel. Even though it’s right at the train station, the hotel is first-class. We … Read More
Next stop, Takayama. We took a shinkansen (a Japanese bullet train) from Yokohama to Nagoya, then switched to an ‘express’ train from Nagoya to Takayama. An express train is slower … Read More
Our hotel in Takayama, Hidatei Hanaougi, is a ryokan. The hotel’s website lists ‘Heart-warming hospitality” as the Number 1 reason to stay there, and we couldn’t agree more. From the … Read More
We’ve spent the past week in the company of 6 other intrepid trekkers hiking around Mt Fuji with Mountain Trek guides Ted Taylor and Kirkland Shave. Mountain Trek is a … Read More