I am feeling a little over-indulgent with my travel of late, with not so much a ‘Carbon Footprint’, as treading my big, muddy carbon boots across the carpet and into the living room. Indeed, checking my Dopplr record, I have clocked up 3200 kg of CO2 since June. Ouch. Cute as a button Anyway, I…
Kyoto map – one of several we wore out on our trip round in the humidity! It’s been almost a week since I got back from Kyoto. I think Mum & Dad should have finished their amazing hiking expedition through the Japanese Alps, but in the meantime I have sorted out the photos from our…
Just sitting in the departure lounge for NW69 back to Taipei,after a superb long weekend in Kyoto with the folks. Although I have been there before, it’s nice to fill in a few blanks and see some things from a different angle. Presently, tapping away on my iPod’s wifi, writing a few e-mails and chatting…
Off to Japan for a long weekend to meet up with my folks who are walking in the Japanese Alps for a couple of weeks – how jealous am I?! They elected to not come to Taiwan this time, but I did not have to have my arm twisted too hard to meet them in…
I came away feeling like Japan is an immediately accessible place, and yet one that is completely impenetrable. If the society has a simple, immediately recognisable silhouette, then its culture is an intricate texture of patterns and forms. One of my mini personal projects was to look harder at these surfaces and textures. Just to…
Nara was the capital of Japan before Kyoto, followed by Tokyo. I was not particularly interested to see the place, simply because Kyoto is so stupendously endowed, but in the end I came away really liking the place. Instead of the hundreds of temples and hidden gems in its neighbour, Nara has a couple of…
Kyoto is now officially one of my favourite places on the planet. The weather has been nigh on perfect for my time here and it has been truly splendid seeing the city. The highlight of the trip – just perhaps one of the highlights of all my travelling – was renting a bike and riding…
This second trip to Japan is a complete, unfiltered assault on my senses. I return to my room each night completely shattered, my nerves shot. I have travelled to some relatively extreme places, but Japan repeatedly leaves me bewildered, shaken and stirred. Waiting for my flight at Taipei Taoyuan International Airport – formerly Chiang Kai…