FESTIVAL FUN & A LITTLE BIT OF TONGUE This week is Golden Week in Japan; this week of national holidays is the busiest holiday season in Japan. It’s also the week when many cities hold festivals to celebrate this festive season. We’ve turned into festival junkies after our […]
KICKING UP CLOUDS OF ASH ON SAKURAJIMA We were so entranced by Sakurajima,, the active volcano just 2km across the bay from Kagoshima, that we decided to spend today getting better acquainted with this noisy mountain. It was awe-inspiring, getting close to such an incredible force of nature. […]
KAGOSHIMA IS A PRETTY, GRITTY CITY Welcome to Kagoshima, ladies and gents! This is “mainland” Japan’s southernmost city and our home-away-from-home for the next few days. This hot, humid city of 600,000 souls is very pretty, tucked between green, forested hills and nestled in the shelter of Kinko […]
PEERING INTO THE ASO RING OF FIRE Call us stupid, but we went to peer into the pit of Japan’s largest active volcanoes today. Aso-san (i.e. Mount Aso) is one of the largest volcanoes in the world, with a caldera that’s about 20km in diameter and 128km in circumference. […]
KUMAMOTO IS A BEARY NICE TOWN Welcome to Kumamoto blog fans, a town famous for 3 things: its castle (Kumamoto-jo), its high-tech industry, and its mascot Kumamon*, the black bear. Kumamon was created by the government of Kumamoto Prefecture in 2010, when the Kyushu shinkansen line first began […]
Wandering Soles 