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Wow Place #348: Mount Fugen-dake, Japan   By and large, I’m a “moderate” guy.  Moderate height. Moderate weight. Some might say moderate looks and intelligence.  😊   I like moderate portions in my food.  The spice level of my curry? Moderate!   So when I found a hike in Unzen-Amakusa National Park described in the guidebook [...]

There’s a scene in the movie Kill Bill: Vol. 2, where the Bride (played by Uma Thurman) wakes up in a coffin, buried alive by her evil nemesis, Bill.  Luckily, she has trained for situations like this, able to break through wooden containers via the sharp, focused, rap of her knuckles.   I have no [...]

I’ve never been a particularly superstitious person. If a black cat crosses my path or I accidentally step on a crack, I’m not overly concerned about my own bad luck or the state of my mom’s cervical spine. On the other hand, I don’t purposely walk under ladders. I try not to break mirrors. I [...]

Some time back, I wrote about my visit to Upenji Temple (Wow Place #77), a memorable stop on the Shikoku 88-Temple Pilgrimage Trail.  I was reminded of Upenji recently while watching the fascinating new documentary, “The Hikikomori Pilgrimage (2026),” produced by NHK WORLD-JAPAN documentary.   The documentary details the journey of five young men, all [...]

There’s an old expression in Japanese that I find quite intriguing:  “Ataru mo hakke, ataranu mo hakke.”  It literally means “fortune-telling misses as often as it hits.”   The phrase suggests several things:  1) fortune-telling is a serious practice  2) Sometimes its predictions actually come true  3)  Sometimes they don’t.   Implied, as well, in [...]

Over the years, I’ve been continually bothered by a key contradiction of travel:  Is tourism “good” or “bad’ for a place?   On the one hand, visitors bring much-needed tourism dollars to cities and towns that might struggle to support themselves otherwise.  On the other hand, along with the tourist hordes often comes overcrowding, disrespectful behavior [...]

For every big, famous city you pin on your itinerary -- teeming with tourist sites -- there’s always a quaint, little-discussed town nearby that preserves the local culture as a living time capsule.   In Italy, it’s possibly Verona.   In Spain, it’s most likely Ronda.  In France, my vote is for Bologna.   In Nepal, it’s [...]

When you think about Japan, a few stereotypical experiences come to mind, like:   taking part in a tea ceremony, attending a sumo match, catching sight of a geisha, walking under cherry blossoms or eating excellent raw fish at a sushi bar.   Myself, I’m always hoping in Japan to run into ninjas or photograph a [...]

When it comes to travel, there are two kinds of sights:  1) planned & 2) unplanned.   Planned sights include landmarks you find in a guidebook as well as ones you hear about from friends, family and online forums.  You “plan” to visit these kind of locations because, more often than not, they’re pretty darn [...]

  As long as there’s been a Japan, there’s been sake.  At least that’s the message I receive as I wander through the three-story history museum at Otokoyama Sake Brewery near Arashiyama, Hokkaido.   If ever there was a cathedral to the production and consumption of Japanese rice wine, this is it.   Here you [...]