Japan Travel Tips & Hidden Gems
As late March turns into early April, the main cherry blossom season in Tokyo comes to a close as the final few petals fall from the trees and flutter to the ground. Alas, while this time of the year marks…
Sitting around the sunken irori hearth on the skin of a bear while listening to Oriyama-san talk about the culture of northern Akita’s Matagi hunters, I thought to myself, “This is exactly the side of Japan that I signed up…
You know… Even all these years later, Fukushima continues to get a bad rap due to the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that happened in 2011. Honestly, it breaks my heart whenever someone inevitably shows up in the comment section of…
Recently, I took a trip to northern Japan to shoot promotional content for the JR East Pass (Tohoku Area). The last time I did this, I tried to jump from region to region as I climbed my way north to…
Oftentimes, I say on social media that I need many lifetimes just for Japan. In fact, I doubt that even 10,000 years would be enough to see it all. And even then, by the time a hundred centuries pass, there…
Every year, I travel north to Tohoku to chase the peak bloom of the cherry blossoms. You see, unlike in Tokyo, where the petals are all long gone by the middle of April, Japan’s northern reaches bloom a lot later…
Over the years, I’ve mentioned Hirosaki Castle Park on this blog a number of times now in other articles about the cherry blossoms, but I’ve never gotten around to featuring it. So, it’s high time that I get around to…
When it comes to cherry blossoms, Fukushima Prefecture is truly a fantastic place. Home to trees like the famed Miharu Takizakura, you’re truly spoiled for choice when it comes to springtime blossoms in Fukushima. That all said, while there are…
“I feel uncertain as the days pile on, and yet, I think of crossing the Shirakawa Barrier.” — Matsuo Basho Alright, confession time folks. For a good while now, I have wanted to revisit the lovely area of Kawaguchiko (lit. “Lake…
Recently, I had the chance to visit Nihonmatsu in Fukushima Prefecture as part of a government initiative to encourage more tourists heading to Tohoku to stop by along the way. Truth be told, until this opportunity came up, even I…
You know, somehow, I completely neglected to do an Aomori area guide thus far. Though I did indeed cover a lot of what the city has to offer in my article about autumn in the prefecture, I guess I just…
When I originally published my in-depth primer on Akita Prefecture, I thought I had covered it all. Alas, as is always the case with Japan, no endeavor to thoroughly introduce a place is ever fully complete. In my foolishness, I…
It was late February, and we were taking refuge from the cold at a ski lodge up in the Appi Highlands of Iwate. Outside, soft, powdery snow fluttered down tenderly from the heavens above. The journey that led us here…
Just as is the case with the cherry blossoms, Japan has a lot of amazing locations for the hydrangea season. Over the years, I’ve been to many of the popular spots like Kamakura’s Meigetsu-in, but few places can compare with…
It’s been more than a decade since the triple disasters of 2011 wreaked havoc on Japan’s Tohoku region. Even today, many people still fear traveling to Fukushima Prefecture due to some ill-formed notion that they’d be at risk of radiation…