May 23, 2010 - Sendai and the One-Eyed Dragon

“How did you sleep?”, I stayed the night at a simple Japanese style ryokan and the older lady in charge kindly offered to drive me back to the station and, while keeping her eyes firmly on the road, manages her first English since I arrived yesterday morning. “Eh”, I need a split second to think, because after I laid out the futon and the bedding on the tatami matting when I came back late last night, I slept badly and the paper sliding doors provided precious little protection when the sun started to rise at 4.29 a.m. “Yes, I slept OK“,...

Aug 23, 2006 - Justin Komine - King of the Komine Castle

OK, so where did we leave off...they came and picked up our luggage and off it went to Sendai, its a weird system, as they probably just send it on the train. Oh well, when in Rome...we decided to eat at the Imperial Hotel, as they gave us this great discount coupon. They have 17 restaurants, but the one that interested us was the buffet. It was the first buffet in Japan, so we thought we'd give it a try. Wow! It was very nice. We ordered a really nice house wine, and took our time and sampled just about every dish there, except the really...

May 25, 2006 - Matsushima (03/04/06-04/04/06)

L'étape suivante au Japon avec notre "Japan Rail Pass" est la petite ville de Matsushima, dans la partie nord de l'île de Honshu (la plus grande de l'archipel). La baie de Matsushima avec ses innombrables petites îles fait partie des "Nihon Sankei", les "trois plus belles vues" du Japon. Malheureusement, nous n'avons pas eu de chance avec le temps, et nous avons failli nous envoler dans la tempête, vraiment violente... Die nächste Etappe in Japan mit unserem "Japan Rail Pass" ist die kleine Stadt Matsushima, im nördlichen Teil der Insel...

Jan 21, 2006 - 500 feet below sea level!

Woke up, had breakfast and departed in a leisurely manner to get Ryan back in shape. Caught the bus back to the train station, placed our luggage in a coin locker and went exploring on one of the old ferrys that had previously provided transportation between Hokkaido and Honshu Islands. After one of the ferrys capsized during a typhoon in 1956, the government reacted by constructing the longest (53.9 km) and deepest (250 meters below sea level) rail tunnel in the world between the two islands. We took a tour of one of the two emergency...

Apr 8, 2005 - 5-7-5 again

To start, a haiku by Basho, a famous Japanese poet that I learned about yesterday... Long conversations beside blooming irises - joys of life on the road There. Maybe now that you have been soothed by the tranquil verse of Basho you will forget that it has been a long itme since I wrote anything good on the site. It isn'nt because I don't love all of you, but rather that a) computer internet access for me is (surprise!) a little tougher in Japan than India, and b) Reiko Takeyama and family has been keeping me busy 24/7!!! Tomorrow I get...