Between the introduction of the JR East Welcome Rail Pass 2020 catering to foreigners resident in Japan and JR East's week-end and 3-day passes already available for anyone, this is a great time to head north. Sendai, the largest city in the Tohoku region, is just an hour and a half north of Tokyo … Continue reading Sendai’s Surprising Twentieth Century History
On the outskirts of the Iwate town of Hiraizumi stands a striking red and white Buddhist temple, built into a cliff-face: Takkoku no Iwaya. This is a temple steeped in history. It has been a sacred site since 801AD. Like many early Buddhist sites, it began with a cave, which was then enclosed by a … Continue reading Takkoku no Iwaya: history carved in stone
Travelers bound for Hiraizumi, with its World Heritage sites dating back a thousand years, usually change from the Shinkansen to the local train at Ichinoseki and are often so intent on their final destination that they miss the delights Ichinoseki has to offer. But spare a few hours to explore; you won't be disappointed. Ichinoseki's … Continue reading Iwate’s Ichinoseki: a way station worth checking out
With virus cases continuing to rise in both Japan and elsewhere, clearly it's still not a good idea to travel. So I've headed back to my collection of travelogues to see what I might find to fire my imagination and evoke my own memories. My eye fell upon Dorothy Britton's 1974 translation of "Narrow Road … Continue reading More Armchair Travel: Heading Toward Tohoku
A water-filled volcanic crater is a thing to behold. One spectacular example in Japan is Lake Towada which sits on the border between Aomori and Akita Prefectures. Here one finds a crater within a crater and a volcano that vulcanologists regard as still active even though it hasn't erupted in a millenium. Sitting 690 meters … Continue reading Towada-ko: Exploring a northern crater lake
The small city of Kamaishi, on the Sanriku coast of Iwate Prefecture, for more than a century a thriving center of Japan's steel production is, these days, supported by fisheries, shellfish farms, and eco-tourism. It was badly impacted by the 2011 Tohoku disaster, with the tsunami waters reaching 4.3 meters, easily breaching the Kamaishi Tsunami Protection … Continue reading Kamaishi Kannon: guardian goddess and witness to history
I'm not very fond of cold weather, which is perhaps one reason I particularly love the soothing steam of a good hot bowl of soup when I come in from the cold. I daresay I'm not alone in these sentiments. The Tohoku region of Japan, famously cold and snowy in winter, has many hearty winter … Continue reading Hachinohe Bouillabaisse Festa – absolutely a reason to go north in winter
Soba, a Japanese noodle made of buckwheat, became popular in Japan during the Edo Period (1603-1868) and remains popular to this day. Frequently consumed as a snack or fast food, it can also form a complete meal. Buckwheat has been cultivated in Japan for centuries, although much of the buckwheat flour used these days is … Continue reading So many ways to eat soba!
More than half of the apples produced in Japan are grown in Aomori Prefecture at the top of Honshu, the largest island in the Japanese archipelago. That's nearly 450,000 tons of fruit coming from Aomori alone. Aomori's northern climate is particularly conducive to apple production, a fact recognized by the American missionaries who first introduced … Continue reading All things apple are in Aomori
Iwate Prefecture in Japan's Tohoku (northeast) region is a beautiful and diverse area with much to recommend it to the intrepid tourist. Not long ago we were travelling the countryside between Hiraizumi in the interior and Ofunato, one of Iwate's coastal cities hard-hit by the 2011 earthquake/tsunami disaster, and decided to make a stop at … Continue reading Iwate Off the Beaten Track
A video produced by Miyagi Prefecture to promote tourism to the area has proven to be controversial. Late last year I posted about promotional videos for the Oita/Beppu area and what fun they were. The Miyagi promotional video is different. The video features Dan Mitsu, a Japanese actress known for trading on her sexuality, as … Continue reading Tourism promotion gone awry
Japan has a long history of various kinds of metallurgy beginning with swordmaking, but certainly not ending there. I have learned that Japan has an appreciation for cast iron cookware similar to what my mother instilled in me, although, like many things with Japan, they've taken it to a different level. When I was a … Continue reading A different kind of “Iron Man”
Jigsaw Japan 