Aug 16, 2017 | Area Guides, Culture, Kansai, Nara, Osaka, Photography
Another week, another temple/shrine post. Just gonna be honest, you visit a lot of these things when you’re in Japan. It’s one of the perks of living here. That having been said, I do admit to a bit of chronic temple/shrine fatigue. I’ve been to so...
Aug 9, 2017 | Area Guides, Culture, Photography, Sendai
Yet another batch of photos from an afternoon exploring Sendai. On the occasion of this afternoon, Mary and I visited the pleasant Kamekoa Hachimangu in the hills West of Sendai proper. Now you may recall that we’ve already vistied one Hachiman shrine here on...
Apr 4, 2017 | Area Guides, Kyoto, Osaka, Photography
It’s been colder than usual, for longer than usual this year. That means that Hanami is a tad delayed. That’s fine though since I still have some photos from last year’s Sakura season to tide us over until the skies are thick with pink petals and the...
Jul 5, 2016 | Area Guides, Experiences, Osaka, Photography
About a ten minute bike ride from our flat is Shitennoji (四天王寺), officially the oldest, active Buddhist temple in all of Japan. Pretty darn neato! And while the temple itself seems nice, what took me there was not the grounds themselves but what happens on the 21st...
May 11, 2016 | Area Guides, Culture, Experiences, Osaka, Reviews
I’m not a big museum guy. I wish I were. I certainly enjoy learning and think it’s important to see items of significance in person to help make the relevance of history come alive, but most of the time the experience is so static that it’s tough for...
Nov 3, 2015 | Area Guides, Culture, Photography, Sendai
We’d been in Sendai for almost 5 months before finally getting up to the site of Sendai Castle, which is odd considering it’s, at most, a 15 minute bike ride away. I think one of the reasons we kept putting it off was that we knew there wasn’t a...
