This message by a vendor on the website of the Nogi Antique market convinced me we must go there. How could you not visit someone who...

There's a word in Japanese I just love. It's hai, pronounced hi, a clipped expulsion of air from the throat, short and swift. It's a very...

You know what we could say about Tokyo's weather so far? Beautiful one day, perfect the next! Yesterday was hot with a blue blue sky,...

Gosh it seems so long since I've written to you yet it's only forty-eight hours. We've left Shiragawa, visited Kanazawa, come back by...

a simple bamboo vase on a wall at Beniya Mukayu holds a single red camellia Had things gone as planned today, we would have been visiting...

An extraordinary art installation, Tsukubai 2006 by Kenya Hara donated to the hotel by the maker. This is between the hotel library and...

We negotiated our way from hotel to the metro to JR Shinkansen train line this morning without getting lost and in time for me to wander...

Hello buddies, happy Easter! Let me tell you a little folk story I learned on the walk home today. Once upon a time, in 769, brave Lord...

Today was truly the epitome of chi-go ichi-e (once in a lifetime). I can't wait to tell you all about it! Get a cup of coffee. It's a...

This is the system for seating guests at breakfast at the hotel in Takayama. I think we were blue on the far side, with a window...

Remember the forecast for today? Rain which occasionally stops? It didn't. Stop. At all. The temperature (6-11C) was fairly chilly but it...

Sunday (was that only yesterday??) could not have been a more perfect day for a flight! We had a bird's eye view of the CBD of Brisbane....

Himeji Castle The Japanese concept of beauty is about the imperfect, subtle, transient, simple and understated. There was a little about...