Recently, I flew from Japan to Saipan...

Looking out the window, I saw a shadow of our plane on the clouds below us. Unusually, it had a halo.


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It was drizzly and cloudy the day we visited Mount Usu, an active volcano in Hokkaido, Japan. It last erupted in March 2000, smashing some buildings, the highway, and assorted vehicles but - fortunately - no people.

We took the cable-car up to the top of the mountain, and then hiked down to the rim of the crater.  Aware that this volcano had blown ( Read more... )

The Embassy of Sweden in Tokyo fascinates me. It feels like something from a fantasy.
One might see elven folk on those garden balconies.


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I'm in Tokyo. Towers of glass and concrete, narrow roads and tangles of double-decker expressways. Manicured street trees. Eclectic conformist fashions. And a snake.

I'd gone to a small park in Hiro-o opposite a grocery store.  It was long and narrow (the park, not the grocery store), and followed a water course of some kind, a stream or rivulet ( Read more... )