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About two years ago I started seeing articles about Japanese island called Naoshima Island in national magazines. For example, Pico Iyer, one of the best travel writers ever, did a piece for Wall Street Journal. And others showed up on blog posts and travel magazines. This caught my...
I don’t know where to start when it comes to posting about Japan. It is such an interesting place to visit. So much to share. I have already done a post about the meaning of Cherry Blossom Season and another one about the Kimono Rental business. This blog post is a mix of...
Seoul is not on the top of cities to visit, but it could be. We were there for a couple of days last spring and found plenty to see and do. Last week’s blog post covers some of what we discovered. This post Seoul Scenes Part 2 covers the second half of the weekend. First, our hotel […]
We weren’t planning on visiting Seoul as part of our trip to Japan during Cherry Blossom season, but the best priced flight routed us through this Asian city so we decided to take tack a few days on the end of our trip to check it out. So glad we did. Loved it and would […]
When articles about a revolutionary new digital art museum started showing up on my Google Alerts for “Things to do in Tokyo” I got really excited. We had visited the Atelier des Lumineres in Paris, billed as one of the best new things to do in the City of Light and loved it. Magical...
When we decided to take a trip to Japan during Cherry Blossom season I didn’t realize what a big event it is in this thriving civilization once closed to Westerners in Asia. Yep. They are gorgeous. Thousands and thousands of cherry blossom trees all over the country spring into glorious...
What a hoot. When you go to Japan and Korea, you can expect to see lots of people in their native costumes. In Japan, that’s a kimono and Korea a hanbok. I loved it. Having a degree in Clothing and Textiles and a history in the fashion industry I’m always interested in what people wear....
I never get tired of going to festivals. There’s something compelling about people gathering to celebrate something or other. Last November I attended a festival in a small town in the Thar Desert in the Rajthastan region of India on a Jim Cline Photo Tour. To be perfectly honest, I’m not...
Last April I encountered a robot in the Seoul airport. That’s right. This snowman shaped creature was buzzing about the hallways of the modern transportation hub, providing answers to questions and directing, or should I say, “leading” people to destinations of their choice. I was quite...
by Kate Dernocoeur, guest blogger Arriving in Japan as a budget traveler in 1981 led me to a very basic and unexpected discovery: toilets in the places we could afford in those days were almost universally the Asian “squatter” variety. After my initial surprise, I came to agree that using what...