In 1999, a few girlfriends and I decided to take our very first international post-college trip to Europe. We had no idea how to go on our own, so we booked a bus tour that would take us across seven countries in a span of two weeks. The tour company […]
Read More• Japan
NAKED BATH JAPANESE GIRLS
It’s always interesting for me to see which of our posts get more traction and which barely a trickle of visitors. I often find it to be completely unpredictable when some of my own favorite posts fly under the radar (example 1, 2, 3) while uninspired 20-minute write-ups are getting constant […]
Read MoreThere Is Always Room for More: Exploring Japanese Cuisine. Part II
My last post was all noodles – soba, udon, ramen, but there is so much more to Japanese culinary traditions. To expand our food horizons, we visited Dotombori street in Osaka. The name “Dotombori” refers both to the Dotombori Canal and to Dotombori Street which runs parallel to the canal’s […]
Read MoreEating Our Way Through Japan
The first and only thing I used to think of any time anyone said the words “Japanese” and “food” in the same sentence was “sushi”. I was faintly aware of noodles and tempura but have never been a big fan of either. Sushi, on the other hand, has been my […]
Read MoreHow I Left Everything and Joined a Monastery in Japan… For One Night
There are old fables of exhausted men climbing tall mountains to find a wise Buddhist monk meditating on the very top. The monk then, in very few words, discloses to the weary traveler the secret to success, love, life, or whatever grand question is presented. In these fables, the monks […]
Read More