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My Rough Guide to Japan tells me that the Joetsu Shinkansen from Tokyo to Niigata was the most expensive train track in the world to build. It cost some 6 billion yen per kilometer and about one third of the journey is through tunnels. Built by LDP pork-barrel legend Tanaka Kakuei, the bullet train line runs [...] When home is a fifty-something square meter Tokyo shoe box and the daily commute is shared with thousands in the same predicament, it’s easy to forget there are other ways of living. But photojournalist Everett Brown and macrobiotic cookbook writer Deco Nakajima remembered and did something about it. Brown’s Field is their remarkable and inspirational home. Everett [...] Sado ferry Sado seems to be one of those places that everyone talks about going to but few actually get to. After 10 years in Japan this was my first trip to the island, on a story for an airline magazine. First photos were on the ferry – a pretty chilly voyage as it was still mid [...] The Micro Artist Studio in Nagano prefecture is where Seiko-Epson make their Sonnerie luxury watch. I was up there for a story earlier this year. Each Sonnnerie costs 15.7 million yen and is made from 630 parts over 12 months. There are 12 “micro-artists” in the workshop but all the watches are assembled by this man: Japanese [...] Question: How do you launch a 120cm diameter, 420kg “yonshakudama” fireworks shell – the largest in the world? Answer: Spend a year making it, bury a length of ex-oil pipeline in the ground, insert the shell, blast it 800 meters in the air, make sure spectators stay nearly a kilometer away, watch and enjoy. Question: How do [...]
Superb photos by my friend and partner in crime Mattias Westfalk of lighthouses on the West Coast of the US. Last Spring we spent 2 weeks travelling from San Francicso to Seattle and visiting every lighthouse we could for an inflight magazine. I was on a relatively rare these days [...] I have a bad case of itchy feet. It’s been a while since I’ve spent so long stuck in Tokyo, so I know exactly what the haiku poet Basho is talking about here . . . “The months and days are the travelers of eternity. The years that come and go are also voyagers. Those who [...] Thanks to Alfie for putting me on to this. There’s a very unusual new blog by a non-Japanese from Hiroshima. Here’s how he explains it: My name is Isaak, and I’m a homeless wanderer in Japan. After going through an incredibly painful divorce and being let go from my job, I’ve decided to take some time off [...] I visited the Ghibli museum in Mitaka last week for my story on Miyazaki Hayao. Last time I was there it had only been open for a couple of years. This time I was struck by just how Ghibli-esque the whole area around the museum has become. The park by the museum, Inokashira Koen, is really [...] Day trip to Osaka yesterday for a story on instant ramen (of all things). On the way back I remembered to ask for a seat with a view of Mount Fuji. Mount Fuji Not bad for pictures taken through an inch of window glass! |
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