Category Japan
A bento box of Japan tips
One of our hotels in Japan served breakfast bento, which was perfect for me as I adore both breakfast and eating a variety of foods. Since I have no business claiming to be an authority on Japan, I thought it would be fun to share a variety of bite-sized tips which might be useful […]
Ryōan-ji Zen garden: 15 rocks and a 15 year marriage
As a young woman I thought a typical marriage was this: the wife thanklessly plows through endless chores while her husband, planted in front of a television, yells at a sports game as piles of empty beer cans rise up around him. I never wanted to be married. HOB and I met at a bookstore […]
Osaka as pop art installation
I was feeling self-congratulatory on the train to Osaka. All of our other plans had fallen through because of the typhoon but we had a train pass and hotels in Osaka were cheap so we made a last-minute decision to head there from Nara. I’d never visited a place without a binder full of research […]
Borrowed scenery: Kyoto’s Golden Pavilion and Beijing’s Summer Palace
My standard travel practice involves avoiding anything that smacks of shiny; palaces, treasuries, and—most dreaded of all—collections of silver tableware. Nevertheless, I wanted to see the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto. HOB and I had both read Yukio Mishima’s novel The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and were curious about this temple which had been rebuilt […]
Nara’s Kasuga-taisha shrine and the divinity of nature
After we had to cancel our pilgrimage hike across the Kii Peninsula because of Typhoon Hagibis, HOB and I visited the tourist information center in Nara to try to find another hike. I read that there was a primeval forest nearby and wanted to see if we could hike there. The friendly man at the […]
Japanese toilets: so much to go on
This symbol is all over Japan: Yes, that is the international symbol for “spray your butt.” And for the ladies: Spray your ladyparts while wearing a bike helmet. This button is either the dry cycle or a close up of ramen noodles. Toilet shy? No problem—your Japanese toilet also provides a soundtrack to cover embarrassing […]
Kyoto’s Moss Temple: nature’s social contract
In 48 hours: one flight from Chicago to Tokyo, one bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto, nine subway rides, one bus and one frantic taxi ride after a different bus didn’t show up as scheduled. We arrived at the Moss Temple just in time for the admission slot which our hotel managed to reserve for […]
How to watch Noh theater in Tokyo
Show up at the last second and buy two tickets to something you don’t know the name of and receive a program you can’t read. Have 5 minutes to eat convenience store food while watching women in gorgeous kimono pour into the hall. Feel bad about wearing clothes you haven’t washed since you walked around […]
How to use the onsen in Japan
Hey, you’re in Japan—-want to get naked with 126.8 million new friends? You got this! Do you have tattoos? No onsen for you. There are about 20 different signs saying “No tattoos in the onsen.” Well, maybe if you just have that one lame butterfly tattoo from high school you could put and bandaid over […]
Bowing to the deer of Nara in a typhoon
Arriving in Nara last night, we went in search of udon, While slurping up our noodles in a random noodle joint, I looked up at at the TV and said to HOB “look at that weather forecast—looks like there’s a typhoon over Japan.” Oops! There was a typhoon bearing down on us, projected to be […]
Picnic at the Cathedral 