Looks and anticipation can be deceiving. The raw chicken I ate in Japan actually wasn’t half bad. But this was much harder to stomach just by the thought of it not to mention the lack of visual appeal. Add “Tuna Eye� to the list of bizarre...

(October 2013) My 10-day Japan trip – the third trip this year – ended in Osaka. Missed an earthquake by a couple hundred miles, and a couple of typhoons by less than that. But all’s well that ends well. I’ve been coming to Osaka for...

On my first trip to Japan, the thing that impressed me most was the architecture. These weren’t just buildings with a nice touch; some of them were crazily unusual, stuff to stop and stare at and take photos of for friends back home. I met a...

So I check in to the

Eating ??? (Basashi) It seems every time I go to Japan, I try something else a little off the beaten culinary path. There was that raw chicken meal last fall as well as the tuna eye in Okinawa. At this point, sea cucumber and such seems a little...

Most travelers to far away foreign lands can tell you stories of songs they never expected to see or hear, in places where few might possibly know what the words meant but many likely could sing them to you. Cue Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always...

Just outside and to the east of Osaka Station, high above the high-rises, stands this bright red Ferris wheel on top of a shopping mall. At its highest point, you are 106 meters above the street. Osaka Station, newly renovated and with even a...

A couple months ago when I was booking my hotels for Osaka, I initially couldn’t find anything at all that was available. What on earth is going on" I wondered. National holiday I didn’t know about" Didn’t I learn my lesson in South Korea...

If there is one thing I hate ? and believe me, there is way more than one ? it’s the airport restroom. Especially when traveling alone and you have no one to watch your bags, it becomes a bit of a circus act in there. Stalls are often way too...

I’m staring at the large rump of a water buffalo and questioning why I’d wanted the front seat in the big cart. I’m on the little island of Taketomi, just 10 minutes by a fast ferry from Ishigaki, way down south in the prefecture of Okinawa...