Parks, gardens, temples and shrines (such as Yasaka Shrine in the Gion District, above) abound in Kyoto. We spent one morning touring many of Eastern Kyoto’s famous gardens and temples, and all but a few were jam-packed with school children on…
Japan – Kyoto
We took the train from Kanazawa to Kyoto and checked into the Seikoro Inn, a ryokan in eastern Kyoto a little bit south of the Gion geisha district. A ryokan is a traditional inn similar to the family-run minshuku we…
Japan – Kanazawa
The birding trip had drawn to a close, and we hopped on the bullet train from Tokyo to Kanazawa, a small city on Honshu’s western coast. There was no need to take reading material for the journey because the view outside…
Japan – Okinawa and Amami Birding
We moved on again to Okinawa, the largest island in the Ryukyu chain. The airport corridors were filled with displays of orchids — thousands of them — and the main terminal had a big aquarium with an array of colorful fish and…
Japan – Ishigaki-jima Birding
We flew to Ishigaki-jima in the far southwest of the Ryukyu Islands very near Taiwan, and the Chinese influence is quite evident. The inhabited coastal areas of the island were full of boxy buildings with peeling paint, bland white tile…
Japan – Birding on Kyushu
Our next birding stop was the larger island of Kyushu, where we stayed a couple of nights near the Mi-ike Forest Reserve, another gorgeous place filled with trails winding through mossy woods. Our target birds here were the Asian stubtail…
Japan – Izu Island Birding
Early the next morning I awoke to birds chirping. Forest birds. Yet we were still on the ferry in the Pacific Ocean! Thoughtfully, the crew played recorded bird sounds over the ship’s intercom to wake passengers gently before we docked…
Japan – Birding on Honshu
After a three-week trip to Japan, I am now completely enamored with the country. The Japanese are extremely polite and make visitors feel very welcome, even when some of those visitors don’t deserve such courtesy (more on that in a…