• A Horse-Blessed Harvest

    Here in the inaka, rice fields are woven into the scenery like squares on a patchwork quilt. The need for a calendar is obviated by their narrative of the seasons; glassy strips in early…

    July 21, 2015

  • Ookawara Gorge and the Firefly Festival

    If ajisai is the quintessential flower of tsuyu season, the firefly must be it’s insect. Called hotaru in Japanese, these lightning bugs swarm around streams and rivers in the countryside from late May to…

    July 11, 2015

  • Ajisai and the Plum Rains

    Due to the stubborn Mei-yu front, most of East Asia experiences a two-month rainy season. During June and July, the weeks become an endless parade of cloudy days, accompanied by debilitating humidity and,…

    July 2, 2015

  • Cape Noma

    Have you ever seen a place that’s so beautiful it doesn’t seem real? That’s how I felt staring out the car window as Mark and I made our way down the coast to…

    June 29, 2015

  • Fukiagehama Sand Sculpture Festival

    Fukiagehama beach is one of Japan’s three biggest sand dune systems. Bordered with pine forests, and facing the East China Sea, it’s also a beloved spot for both the residents of Minamisatsuma City,…

    June 16, 2015

  • Senganen Garden and the Cat Shrine

    “This… is so wonderful that I don’t know how to express it,” said British diplomat Harry Smith Parkes of his sojourn at Senganen in 1866. “Anyone who visits there must be stricken by…

    June 10, 2015

  • Ryumon Falls and the Ancient Road

    I must have woken up half of the forest with the scream I let rip when I felt my legs giving way beneath me, but Mark grabbed my arm and steadied me…

    June 8, 2015

  • Road Trippin’ Solo, Part 4: The Underwater Cave

    Nature in Japan seems to manifest itself completely at odds with the order and structure of its society; vegetation swallows everything that stands still for too long, bugs and insects grow into…

    May 26, 2015
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